What's Going On?
by JasmineOotori1313
Summary: A new girl joins the Host Club, but she is shrouded with mystery. Who is she? Why is she there? Does she even know why she is there? Mainly Kyouya, Kaoru, and Michelle centered, but all the hosts are included.
1. Part of Your World Chapter 1

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own the rights to "I Have Confidence", "Part of Your World", or Ariel from The Little Mermaid

**Chapter One: Part of Your World**

'_Take a deep breath and open the door. You can do it'._ Thought the strawberry-blonde haired girl who found herself staring at two large and ornate maroon doors. She glanced up at the sign to double check that she was where she was supposed to be.

'_Music Room Three. Yep. I'm at the right place.'_ She thought as she remembered the room name that she received in her response e-mail.

'_Ok, now remember that this is a new life and you need to take charge of it. No more being unsure about what to say or do. No more mistakes, you have to be perfect. You are a brand new person with a brand new life. No weaknesses are allowed.'_ She thought as she started humming 'I Have Confidence' to boost her self-confidence up.

'_No fear'_ she thought as she finally found the courage needed to pull the door open. She closed her blue eyes and stepped into her new life.

"Welcome" she heard as a swirl of roses seemed to emanate from a group of six handsome boys that she found herself in front of. They all wore the same periwinkle suit, which was the school's uniform, and were all perched on or around an elegant velvet couch.

"We bid you the warmest of welcomes fair princess" said a smiling, tall blonde haired boy as he stepped away from his group and bowed deeply as he reached out for her hand. Taken aback by the dramatic welcome for a second, the girl reminded herself that she couldn't show any fear or hesitancy. Nobly she extended her hand for the boy to take and soon found his lips upon the back of her hand.

"My name is Tamaki Suoh and you have just found the Host Club mon cheri."

Smiling with the glittering smile that she was used to giving to her friends back… well in another life, the girl graciously said "Thank you Tamaki, I'm Michelle Rose Warner".

At the mention of her name, she noticed the tall black haired boy glanced at the notebook that he held in front of him and made some sort of notation in it after fixing his glasses. Before she could explain why she was there, Tamaki whisked her around the room asking her something about what would she prefer.

"I'm the princely type" he stated as he grinned even wider, a feat that Michelle would not have thought was possible.

"Mori-Senpai" he said as he motioned to the tallest boy in the room.

'_He kinda reminds me of Frankenstein. At least the build of him and the fact that he has a rather unemotional look on his face'_, "is our wild type" Tamaki finished, snapping Michelle out of her train of thought.

Mori simply nodded his head and looked like he was going to say something when a short, honey blonde kid jumped up and down and pulled on Tamaki's pant leg.

"Me next! Introduce me next" the little boy bubbled with a huge grin on his face.

Tamaki looked at the little kid who was overflowing with joy and said "but of course Hunny-Senpai", matching the little one's smile.

He then turned back to the girl who was obviously puzzled by the age of the little boy that Tamaki called senpai.

'_If I'm correct, that honorific Tamaki used when he talked to the little boy means that the little kid is his senior. How can that be?_' Michelle thought as Tamaki said "this here is our beloved Hunny-Senpai and he is our boy-Lolita type".

Next thing he knew, Tamaki was being flicked on the back of his head and two identical boys scolded him for not introducing them first. Stunned by their antics, Tamaki stuttered and the twins took that as an invitation to introduce themselves.

"I'm Hikaru-" one said while reaching out for her hand again

"and I'm Kaoru" the other said as he also reached out for her hand.

Confused, but not wanting to show it, she put out her hand and silently prayed that one would reach for it first so she wouldn't have to choose. To her surprise, they both took her hand at the same time and kissed it together.

'_It seems like they are abnormally close. I mean I knew a couple twins, but they were never this in sync'_ Michelle thought as she smiled politely at their attention.

Gaining his composure back, Tamaki shoved the two aside and said "they are our mischievous type and-" he said as he turned to them for this part, semi-scolding them "they sometimes forget their manners around new costumers".

"Um, excuse me Tamaki-" Michelle tried to say before she was whisked off to the last boy. The tall blonde ignored the fact that she was trying to speak, not because he was being rude, but because he was getting excited at all the introductions.

'_This must be the person who I've been in contact with'_ she thought as they approached a boy who seemed like he couldn't care less about the outlandish manner that Tamaki was carrying on about a girl who wasn't even there as a customer.

Tamaki took her over to the boy with the glasses and said "and last, but not least, we have Kyouya who is our-" he started, but was cut off by the other boy.

"Ah Michelle, I'm glad to see that you made it here, and on time. That's quite unusual for our club" the grey eyed boy said, not even looking up from his notebook.

She smiled, slightly surprised that he didn't even make eye contact with her, and said, "I've always believed that the reason you make appointments is to keep them and punctuality is key".

"I presume that you had no difficulties finding us here" the boy said as he turned to face her with a fake smile plastered upon his face.

"Oh not at all, you gave me excellent directions, thank you" she politely responded, ignoring the fact that she could tell that he wasn't being sincere in his manner of speech at all.

While their small conversation was going on, all the other host club members stood there with their mouths open and in shock that their shadow king knew the girl. They all looked at each other trying to think if Kyouya had mentioned anything about an important client that was coming, since he usually does. However, none of them could think of anything.

Smirking at the fact that all his friends looked puzzled, Kyouya turned to Michelle and told her "I guess we had better inform them on why you are here".

Before she could say anything, the energetic Tamaki squealed "she's not here as a customer?"

"No Tamaki" Michelle began, wondering what was up with this overly emotional boy, "I'm sorry that you didn't give me a chance to tell you that earlier, but I'm here for an interview".

"Interview?" Tamaki and the hosts said, obviously surprised. "Interview for what?" Tamaki questioned.

Now it was clear to her that Kyouya really didn't tell them anything about her. She figured that was the case since no one recognized her name or thought that she had another purpose for being there besides as a customer.

'_Great, now remember, confidence' _she quickly thought as she responded "interview to join this club".

At that the two doppelgangers spoke up and said bluntly "if you haven't noticed, we are all boys here".

Hikaru said "and unless you're very good at hiding who you really are-"

"How could you possibly join our club?" Kaoru finished for his brother as they sneered at her for wanting to join their inner circle of friends.

Tamaki chimed in next, with a sulking attitude that was caused by Kyouya's not telling him about the girl, and in a complete one-eighty from how he was just a few seconds ago.

"I'm afraid they are right Michelle, why do you think that we would want to submit a maiden to the inner workings of a host club?"

"Well", she replied "as you were introducing me to the members of the club, I realized that you didn't introduce a very important type. Unless Kyouya fills that position, you are missing a very valuable characteristic that you could offer to your costumers".

She glanced at Kyouya for a second, because he knew what type she was talking about, and he shook his head no when she asked if he was that type. Realizing that he wasn't going to explain what type she was talking about, Michelle turned to the confused group in front of her, who at the moment were looking around at each other and trying to figure out what was missing.

"You do not have a person that girls can go to for counseling and advice" she said with a smile. "That is very important to girls since they usually are unsure about their life and need to bounce ideas and fears off of someone whom they can trust. No matter how close you may feel with your clients, I assure you that they do not tell you everything and they secretly wish they had someone like that. But, she must be the same sex as they are in order for them to feel truly comfortable." Impressed at the ease and eloquence that she used in describing the position she discussed with Kyouya, Michelle smiled even greater and thought _'maybe I can do this' _to herself.

Tamaki rested his head upon his hand as he thought over her proposal.

"And, she sings" Kyouya said to his best friend coyly and in an attempt to convince him to let her in.

Normally Kyouya has nothing to do with who his friend decides to allow into the club or not, but something about this girl troubled him. He was well known for having the inside information on every single student in the school and prided himself in his knowledge. However hard he tried, he couldn't find any information on Michelle and he hated that feeling. All he knew was that she was an honor student and that she came from America. He could tell she was intelligent, due to her e-mails to him and through her interaction with the club, so he wouldn't mind having her around. But more importantly, the closer she was to the club, the more he could find out about her and he wouldn't be in the dark about a student anymore.

Surprised that his friend said something in a stranger's favor, Tamaki took a second before the words registered in his mind.

"She sings!" He excitedly proclaimed as he jumped up and was restored to the same bubbly personality that he had when he first greeted Michelle.

"Thank you Kyouya, I had actually forgotten to mention that" Michelle said to the boy who returned her acknowledgement with a polite small smile. "I was in my school's A Cappella choir, honor choir, and a soloist for major events, and in my church I was in charge of the youth choir, the entire music program for Summer Bible Camp, and I was the only young person in the adult choir" Michelle said as she fondly remembered all the good times that she was describing in her resume.

With a huge grin on his face, that was slightly creeping Michelle out, Tamaki rushed over to her and said "I play the piano! We can perform together!"

"I heard that you played masterfully Tamaki and it made me really excited at the idea of being able to work with a fellow musician" Michelle said with a smile.

Beaming at the praise he just received, Tamaki asked "What song would you like to sing right now?"

'_You knew that singing would most likely be part of this interview. Remember, the louder you sing, the more control you have'_ Michelle thought to herself as she asked "Do you know 'Part of Your World' from the Little Mermaid?"

"But of course" he answered as he rushed over to where the piano was covered. With one swift and dramatic movement, the violet eyed boy pulled the cover off.

Michelle gasped a little with happiness and sadness as she saw a shiny black Boston piano. _'We have that exact same piano at church…. Stop it! You're here now'_ Michelle argued with herself.

Before she could go and stand next to the piano, Michelle found each of her arms being grabbed by a twin.

"If you want to be a host-" Kaoru said.

"You need to be used to dressing in cosplay" his brother finished.

Next thing Michelle knew, she was being shoved into a dressing room with a mermaid costume hanging in front of her.

Completely bypassing the shock of being grabbed and thrown into a dressing room she sarcastically muttered, "Great, costumes" as she switched from her comfortable jeans and button-down shirt into a mermaid tail and sea-shell cups that were for some reason already prepared for her. "I was perfectly comfortable in my other outfit..."

"Are you changed?" the anxious twins called over to her.

"Yep" she said, trying to figure out how the heck she was supposed to move in the tail she found herself in.

As soon as she said that she was dressed, the twins rushed in again. In a blur the two red heads did her make-up, put a red wig on her head, and hoisted her onto a moving platform so that they could roll her over to the piano.

The remaining hosts all gasped at how beautiful Michelle looked when she emerged from the dressing room, even Kyouya looked up from his laptop, pleased at the way she looked.

'_With her looking like that we are sure to attract some male customers'_ he thought as he looked back down at his work.

The hosts couldn't really tell her body shape through her slightly baggy shirt and jeans combo, but they could now see that she had an amazing figure. She had makeup on before, but the twins wonderfully accentuated her striking blue eyes and gave her ruby red lips to match the wig. Michelle really did look like Ariel.

'_Actress mode now'_ Michelle thought uncomfortably to herself as she saw that all eyes were glued on her in fascination.

"Whenever you're ready Tamaki" she sweetly said after she was positioned right next to the piano thanks to the twins.

Remembering the task at hand, Tamaki scampered over and sat on the piano's bench. He then started to play the hauntingly beautiful beginning for 'Part of Your World'.

Getting swept into the magic of the song, the wonderful memories she had from the last time she heard that model piano playing, and the talented pianist who was playing for her now, Michelle sang her heart out.

Remembering all of the blocking that she did with that song while she practiced at home when she was younger, Michelle completely engaged her audience and could tell that they were happy when she was and that their hearts went out to her when she got melancholy. Looking longingly at the ceiling as she ended the song, she forgot all about everything. She forgot about why she was here, why she had to leave home, why she left all the people she cared about the most, and just was one with the character that she was playing. Still wrapped up in her own little happy world, Michelle didn't notice that all the host club members were in awe at the girl in front of them.

When she snapped out of it and looked around, Hikaru and Kaoru were leaning on each other and wiping tears from their eyes. Tamaki and Hunny were doing the same in their individual seats, while Mori and Kyouya just seemed lost in thought, since they never really show any emotions.

'_Why are they crying? Is that some sort of sensitivity technique that they use with the girls? I hope I don't have to do that. I don't cry.' _Michelle thought.

"Brava! Brava!" Tamaki shrilled, breaking her chain of thought. "You're in!" he said with a huge smile on his tear-stained face as he rushed forward to hug her.

"Knock it off pervert" Hikaru said as he left his brother's side and ripped Tamaki from the girl who was still basically clad in a bikini top and skin tight tail.

"Sorry about the boss, he sometimes can be a sexual harasser" Kaoru added speaking to Michelle.

The girl was blushing at all of the attention and was wondering if the twins were telling the truth or if they were just trying to annoy their friend. Tamaki looked like he was about to defend his character, but after receiving two sets of death glares from the twins, he just rushed over to his sulking corner.

'_Yeah, they were just trying to annoy him.' _She thought as she turned her thoughts back to the performance she just gave.

'_I actually did it! I have a good feeling about this. But what do I know. I thought my life was perfect before… Well before that happened'_

Kyouya just smirked at all of the clamor, as if it was due to his comment that the new girl was admitted into the group.

'_Good, now I can have a complete file on all of the students here'_ he thought as he started to redo the budget to add a new host.

Michelle found herself being whisked back into the changing room so everyone could hug her, once she was in more appropriate clothes. Instead of being able to change back into her comfy garb, a brand new girl's uniform was hanging in the place where her clothes once were.

'_That's going to be the only problem'_ she thought as she put on the atrocious pale yellow dress. '_This dress is ugly as sin and way too frilly and girly for me. I hope that we do a lot of cosplay so I don't have to stay in this hideous thing for too long' _she thought as she stepped back into the music room.

She didn't even take two steps before she was bull-rushed by the twins, Hunny, and Tamaki, who was done sulking. They were all bubbling over about how happy they were that she was a part of the club and were arguing about stupid little things. Things like, who would walk with her from class to class, who would sit next to her during lunch, and who would take her on a tour of the school. Surprised that she became so instantly popular after singing, Michelle was overwhelmed by their arguments over spending time with her.

"What class are you going to be in" was the first real question that she could respond to. She was about to answer when Kyouya spoke up for her.

"She's going to be in class 2-A" he disinterestedly said as he turned to Tamaki to add for clarification "our class". The twins slightly pouted when they found out that she was older than she looked and wouldn't be in their class. That meant that they couldn't hang around her and toy with her as often as they would like. Michelle just nodded her head as Kyouya explained what class she was in.

'_Now he speaks up'_ she thought slightly annoyed that he left all of the hard explanations earlier to her.

"WONDERFUL!" she heard Tamaki screech as he shoved the pouting twins aside and grabbed her arm to escort her to the main door.

"Since you are in the same class as mommy and daddy, daddy gets the right to show his daughter around the school" Tamaki said as they walked to the door. Completely thrown off by his terminology and still not ready to hear such words in use around her, Michelle quickly pulled her arm away from Tamaki. This caused the confused prince to halt in his tracks as he turned to face the girl who just rejected a tour led by him, a feeling he was rather unused to.

"What's wrong my dearest daughter" he asked with a sad and worried look on his face. Stepping out of the polite and false mask that she was wearing the entire time, Michelle raised her voice and said,

"Don't call me your daughter. You are **not** my father!"

Noticing that she had shocked everyone in the club by her mild freak out, Michelle cleared her throat and thought of a way to cover up her little 'episode'.

"I'm sorry Tamaki, it's just that… Well" she said as she was desperately trying to find the proper way to describe what she needed to say. Michelle realized that she just had to use the story that was given to her in order to get out of this problem.

She sighed and thought _'Well, at least I was part of the host club for three minutes'_.

"I'm sorry" she began, "it's just that I recently lost my parents in a car accident. That's why I moved to Japan. I wanted to get away from everything that reminded me about them". As she said this, she gazed out of the window and tried to look sad without really thinking about the words she just said_._

'_I can't really think about it or I'll cry. I don't cry.'_ she thought as she waited for someone else to speak up. Since no one said anything, for what felt like forever, Michelle took that as the response she was expecting if she told them sooner.

"I'm sorry everyone that I bothered you with my problem. Thank you for letting me into your club, but I'm sure I'll only bring the mood down. See you in class Tamaki and Kyouya" she said with a half smile as she walked to the door by herself, purposefully avoiding eye contact with anyone. Not realizing that the reason no one said anything was because they were shocked that this new girl had to go through so much, so recently, Hunny was the first to snap out of it.

"Wait Mi-chan" the little senior said as he reached out for her before she left the room for good.

Surprised that someone was calling her back, Michelle turned around and found all of the hosts rushing over to her, with the exception of Kyouya. He was just writing something in his notebook, secretly happy to have learnt something about her so soon.

"We don't want you to leave" Hunny said as he grabbed her hand, handed her his pink stuffed bunny, and led her back to the nearest couch.


	2. Michelle's Past Chapter 2

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

Chapter Two: Michelle's Past?

"My apologies princess" Tamaki said as he sat down next to her on the velvety pink sofa.

"I never meant to bring up any sad and painful memories" he said as tears were beginning to appear in the sensitive boy's violet eyes again.

"Hunny-Senpai is right, we don't want you to leave" Kaoru said as he sat on one arm of the sofa.

"Especially because of something that our stupid Tono said" Hikaru added sitting opposite of his brother.

At that comment, tears started to flow from the dejected prince's eyes. Mori simply grunted in approval when Kaoru spoke. Touched that they seemed to actually care about her after knowing her for only about a half hour, Michelle smiled at the boys who were all comforting her now. She gave the stuffed animal a quick squeeze, for an added effect and not because she needed to, before speaking up again.

"No need to apologize Tamaki" she said with a hint of melancholy in her voice to the boy to her right, "You didn't know what had happened to me, it's not something that I really talk about. I try my best to distance myself from any memories of my life back in America, so I don't really tell anyone about my loss". Trying to lighten up the mood in the room, Hunny piped in with a huge smile on his face.

"Want some cake Mi-chan?"

Smiling at the cute little senior, she agreed and asked him what type of cake he had.

'_Whoa, this kid loves cake'_ she thought as Hunny started talking a mile a minute describing all the different types of cakes and combinations she could have.

"I'll have a chocolate mousse cake please" she replied after several minutes of hearing all the options.

"Ok" the little boy chirped before giving a head nod to his tall companion, Mori. At his little cousin's approval, Mori turned and silently walked to the kitchen to get the cake that Michelle asked for. When he came back, she handed Hunny back his bunny as she picked up the fork that Mori placed next to the cake in front of her. Knowing that all the boys were waiting for her and that she would now have to tell them what happened, Michelle took a bite and started to describe the story of her parent's death, at least what she could.

"I was at church that night, like I usually was, and I was waiting for them to come pick me up. It was dark that night and raining like the skies just opened up and were empting all their contents."

She stopped as she took another bite of the most heavenly chocolate mousse cake she's ever had.

"Anyway" she continued "the other driver at the intercession they were crossing, lost control of his car and crashed right into my parents' car. Shortly after the EMTs and police arrived at the scene, I received a phone call from them. My music director drove me to the scene of the accident so I could identify my parent's bodies. Upon informing the EMTs that the two mangled corpses were indeed my parents, he told me that they died instantly. Seeing the condition they were in, I could tell that there really was no other option".

Michelle paused again to take another bite.

"I turned away from the sight and heard my music minister still talking to the emergency personnel. I knew at that point, I just had to get away from everything. You see, the last time I talked to them we had an argument that I spent too much time at the church. It figures that if something like that were to happened, it would happen on their way to pick me up from church. Also, after that event, I found out who my real friends were and there were far too few for me to be able to move on with my life after the crash"

Michelle said as she took another bite of the cake. She paused a little longer and it seemed to the hosts that she was getting emotional at the recalling of her parents' death. While that was very true, Michelle was actually trying to remember the next part of the story. Remembering it, Michelle spoke up again.

"I remembered that I had some family in Japan and thought that this was the furthest I could get from the states. I couldn't bear the thought of seeing anyone at my church or any of my other friends, since it would only remind me of my parents. When I came over to Japan, my Aunt and Uncle told me that the best school scholastically was Ouran. I then immediately applied."

"Why'd you want to join the host club though?"

Kaoru chimed in at that point. Perking up at that question, since it made no sense to him why she wanted to join as well, Kyouya closed his laptop and waited for her answer.

"Well, since I'm going through this rough time, I know how important it is to have others help you through the tough times" Michelle started. "Also, since none of the people I called friends were there for me when I needed someone, I would like it very much if I could be there for someone who needs a friendly ear or a person to be there for them. You know, 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'" she smiled sympathetically as she finished the last bite of the cake.

All the hosts bought her explanation and started to applaud her for her selflessness, with one exception. Kyouya noticed that her story seemed rehearsed, especially the last part. Pushing his wire-rimmed glasses further up his nose, he made a note in his black notebook to continue keeping an eye on this newcomer.

'_She is definitely hiding something'_ Kyouya thought.

Wanting to get off the subject, Michelle spoke. "Before I kinda destroyed the mood, someone was talking about showing me around the school. I'd really appreciate that since I came straight here after my interview with the headmaster" she said with her typical brilliant smile. Suddenly all the boys, with the exception of Mori and Kyouya, started arguing over who would get the honor of showing her around the school.

"HOLD IT!" Tamaki shouted, causing the room to become silent. "Being proper gentlemen, we should ask the lady who she would prefer to show her around the school" he added throwing a dazzling smile that reeked of chivalrousness her way.

Getting a headache from his bubbliness, Michelle knew that she wasn't going to pick him.

Looking around the room she noted that she would have the same problem with Hunny.

Since Mori and Hunny seemed like a packaged set, she crossed Mori off of her mental list of candidates.

Remembering that the twins can also be bubbly, calling to mind how she was rushed off into the dressing rooms earlier, Michelle crossed them off the list as well.

Then the grey eyed boy that she had been in contact with from the beginning came to mind. She noted how calm he seemed to act in contrast to the outgoing personalities of the other members.

Michelle spoke up and said "if you wouldn't mind Tamaki" then facing the boy in the corner who was paying full attention to his notebook "I would appreciate it if Kyouya would show me around".

Noticing the slight look of shock on the face of the seemingly emotionless boy, Michelle quickly added, "That is if it wouldn't be an inconvenience to you Kyouya".

Smirking at the fact that he slightly intimidated her and glad that he could spend more time with her so he could add more facts to his profile on her, Kyouya spoke up.

"It would never be an inconvenience to show a fellow classmate around our fair school" he said coolly as he walked over to her and offered her his arm.

Crushed that Michelle turned down a tour led by him for the second time that day, Tamaki went to sulk in his corner and started to draw random patterns on the ground. Much like sharks sense blood in the water, the twins rushed over to further annoy their tono. Happy that he would be left to eat cake, Hunny sat down and started to munch on a piece of cake that seemed to appear out of thin air. Mori simply stood next to his little cousin and seemed perfectly content to stay in the music room as well.

The next chapter is about the tour of the school, I'm so excited. Also, I am very influenced by real life and since I am super involved at my church, Michelle will be as well. So, heads up on that.

Lastly, I want to thank those of you who signed up for updates! This chapter was finished rather quickly, but just a warning, I don't expect to have time to write more than one chapter a month (sooooo sorry).


	3. Challenges  Chapter 3

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

Chapter Three: Challenges

Michelle and Kyouya were now on their tour of Ouran Academy, her new school.

Kyouya asked her what classes she was taking and instead of fumbling with the schedule, she simply handed him the list of her classes that the head of the school gave to her about an hour ago. Upon looking it over, Kyouya made a mental note that she was basically in all his classes.

'_She's also taking a full load of honors and AP classes' _he thought with a slight hint of admiration for a fellow studious student. She was in all of his classes with one exception_._

Instead he noticed that during the time frame of his AP business class, she was enrolled in the elite girl's choir that the school had. He remembered hearing somewhere that only exceptional voices were admitted into that choir and that they were world famous_._

'_That's not too surprising she was admitted due to her beautiful voice.'_ He thought as he handed the strawberry blonde back her list and thought of the best route to use in order to show her where all her classes were.

Engaging in small talk, the tour around the school went very smoothly. Michelle found herself actually enjoying the distant and emotionless Kyouya's company_._

'_He's not like anyone I've met before. He seems to have this aura of loneliness and falseness around him.'_ She thought while remembering that she also was being untrue with the host club members.

'_I guess it takes a fake to spot a fake'_ Michelle thought to herself as she tried her best to match her small steps with the longer strides that her guide was making.

Making mental note of all the places that she could study, but then realizing how loud all of them were, she asked Kyouya

"is there any place in this school that is quiet, I mean is there a place that someone can go to study around here?"

Secretly applauding that he was right in his previous assumption about her being a serious student, Kyouya told her

"I'm afraid not. This school caters to the rich and privileged of Japan. Due to that, all of the students have large studying places at home and solely view the school as a social environment during their free time".

Frowning at the thought that she would only be able to really study at the place that she now called home, Michelle simply said "I see" and continued to follow Kyouya as he turned down yet another hall.

'_Thank goodness that I'm extremely good at getting around the inside of buildings. If not I would get so lost so easily here. I'm quite glad I'm not…' _she paused in her thoughts again. '_I wonder how she's doing'_ Michelle thought as she recalled her best friend back home in America that she was about to compare herself to.

Realizing that his companion wasn't paying attention to him as he pointed out the cafeteria, Kyouya stopped walking. Since she was so lost in her thoughts of her life back in America, Michelle almost plowed right into the dark haired boy. Luckily her peripheral vision worked well and she caught herself before she collided with her guide.

"Did I lose you somewhere" Kyouya coolly asked in an attempt to make her realize that he didn't like being ignored.

"I'm so sorry Kyouya" Michelle said in an overly sweet and apologetic voice. "I didn't mean to stop listening to you. I just was…_'quick think on your feet'_ trying to memorize the layout. Let me see if I remembered right. If we turned around and took a left, we would be back at our home room right?" she asked even though she knew that she was incorrect.

Again noticing that she was covering up what she was really thinking, Kyouya replied

"Michelle, I know that you are well aware that you would not take a left to get to our home room, but a right".

Caught inwardly off guard that someone actually could immediately tell that she was good at directions, she smirked and said coyly

"Hmm, you're right. How did you know that?"

Kyouya merely said that he noticed she recognized turns that they had made before when they approached a hallway from another way.

"And', he added with a smirk as he tilted his head so that she couldn't see his eyes due to the glare, "you had no problems following my directions to the host club. I know that they were not easy to follow".

"Wait" she said inquisitively and this time visibly thrown off by what the tall boy just said to her, "You purposely gave me hard to follow directions to the music room? Why?" Kyouya merely adjusted his glasses with his right pointer finger, inwardly happy that he was able to throw her off.

"You have your secrets and I have mine" he replied with a smirk.

'_Halleluiah, a challenge'_ Michelle thought to herself_. 'I love a good challenge and I have definitely found one in Kyouya'._

"Touché" Michelle coolly said in response as she allowed Kyouya to continue their tour.

After the tour was done, Michelle wanted to prove that she wasn't a bumbling blonde, so the girl stated that she had a wonderful sense of direction. In order to show her guide that she remembered everything he told her, Michelle insisted on Kyouya not telling her how to get back to the music room. Knowing that they were the furthest they could possibly be from their destination and that it would confuse any brand new student, and even several first year students, Kyouya accepted this small 'challenge'.

On the way back to the music room, Michelle engaged Kyouya in a discussion about the teachers that she would be meeting the following day. Absent mindedly, Kyouya answered all her questions while he watched in amazement as she was making turns and using short-cuts he never even walked down with her. In no time at all, they soon found themselves in front of the familiar light maroon double doors.

"Told ya I could do it" Michelle said as she smugly turned to open the door.

Before she had her hand on the door handle, Kyouya reached out for it first. Not reacting as quickly as she would have liked, Michelle found her hand on top of his. For a brief moment, she felt his cool skin beneath her warm hand.

She immediately retracted her hand and feeling a slight blush creeping over her cheeks. Michelle allowed him to open the door for her.

'_It's funny how much this place already feels welcoming'_ she thought as she stepped into the only familiar room in the building and completely dismissed the brief awkward moment outside.

Tamaki rushed to her side and started to bombard her with a million questions. Most importantly he wanted her to assure him that Kyouya was a perfect gentleman and didn't try anything while they were on their tour.

"Idiot, like I would do anything inappropriate" Kyouya said as he whapped his best friend over the head and continued back to his precious notebook and laptop.

"Yeah Boss-" Hikaru said.

"He's not you" Kaoru finished.

"NOW ENOUGH OF THAT!" Tamaki screeched as he said "You two are worse than I am".

"So you're-" Kaoru started

"Admitting that you are perverted" Hikaru finished.

As the evilly grinning twins ran away with Tamaki in hot pursuit, Michelle turned back to Kyouya and thanked him for a lovely tour. He nodded in response while his fingers were quickly flying over his keyboard adding all the details he learnt about Michelle during their short walk.

"Well, if that's it for today" Michelle said as she reached for her folded clothes that were on the sofa nearest to the door "I'll be going to my aunt and uncle's house".

All the host members looked up at the blue eyed girl and bid her a fond 'see ya tomorrow!" with the exception of Kyouya.

He merely said while looking down at his laptop "don't forget that school starts tomorrow promptly at eight o'clock". Smiling as she told Kyouya that she knew that already, Michelle reached for the door and walked out.

'_Thank You God for letting me get through that and with the result I was looking for_" she prayed as she leaned against the door that she had just closed behind her and pulled her clothes to her chest_. 'Please continue to be with me on my first day tomorrow and please, look over all my friends back home. I miss them so much_'.

With that, Michelle walked out of her new school building.

Hey everyone! Since the holidays are coming, things have already started to become hectic, but here's the newest post. Please let me know what you think so far! Thanks once again to those who signed up for updates, it really lets me know that someone's interested in this story, like me :)


	4. The Truth Chapter 4

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own Apple, Disney, Hershey Park, or Microsoft Word

Chapter Four: The Truth

'_At least it's not that far of a walk to school'_ Michelle thought as she approached her destination on foot. _'I hope that the host club doesn't find out that I'm not really staying with my aunt and uncle… That was a good lie they came up with for me.'_ She thought as she walked up the stairs of Heavenly Savior Catholic Church

'_Well, if they follow me after school one day, I can simply say that I wanted to pray before I went home to study'_

In reality, Michelle Rose Warner doesn't exist

That name and most of her story was made up for the blue eyed girl by the Witness Protection Program. Her parents were killed in a car crash, but it was no accident. She had no choice but to leave her home and life in America after she found out that her parents, who worked for the government, were dead.

'Michelle' loved her home and her church. The last thing that she would ever want in this world was to be permanently separated from them. They were her life…

'_At least they found me a place to stay in a church's rectory. Being near Jesus always makes me feel better and in a country where I know nothing nor anyone, it helps to have some sort of familiar surroundings'_ she thought as she paused for a second to bow at the altar before she continued through the church to the rectory in back.

'_I am lucky to have an understanding and kind priest as my guardian'_, she thought as she gave a small smile to the elderly man who was currently talking to a young couple in the back of the church. Fr. Kichi was one of those 'priest's priests'. You know, the one that all of the priests aspired to be like since he followed the words and examples of Christ to a tee.

'_I could have ended up with someone like the priest I had to deal with when I was younger_' she shuddered at the only unpleasant memories she had of her favorite place to be.

Turning the small brass handle on the door to her room, Michelle heard Fr. calling for her.

"Good afternoon Father" Michelle said with a large smile, "I didn't want to bother you since I saw you were talking with the Osarus".

She fully turned to face the priest that was now standing in front of her with an equally large smile.

"I was just idly chatting with them, so you wouldn't have interrupted anything important" he softly stated, "In fact, we were talking about you".

Michelle put on a polite and fake look of surprise on her face at that comment.

"Me" she said, "I haven't done anything important enough to talk about yet" she said with a chuckle.

The priest put his hand on her shoulder and said with his gentle smile "Being accepted into Ouran Academy is not a small accomplishment to laugh at".

"After I get my first report card and if it's filled with straight As like I'm used to, then I'll have an accomplishment worth talking about" she responded. She secretly and briefly loved it when people were bragging about her, but Michelle had a really bad low self esteem problem and never truly believed any praise that she received. She never actually thought that she was good enough to deserve praise, so she always quickly dismissed other's kind words.

Fr. Kichi just patted her shoulder and said "I'm sure you'll excel at Ouran. If you excuse me though, I need to start getting ready for the evening prayer service today"

"I'll help you with the set up in a second Father, I just want to change first" motioning to her ugly uniform while she said this.

"It looks lovely on you dear, but if you wish to change, I will not complain" he said as he walked away from the girl who was trying very hard not to laugh at his comment that the 'costume' looked good on her.

Since she was staying in a rectory, Michelle's room was rather small, but she didn't need much room. If someone had told her a year ago that she was going to move somewhere where she would only have enough space for a bed, desk, small closet, and a bathroom the size of a normal closet, she would have laughed at them.

"I couldn't fit my clothes in a room that size" she would have responded snidely. Now, thanks to her being rushed out of the country, Michelle had to leave basically everything back in her old home.

'_At least I still have my laptop, Dale stuffed animal, iPod, and Disney t-shirts' _she thought as she smiled and slipped into a Toy Story shirt and a pair of jeans.

Michelle loved being at her church at home and because of that she knew how to set up for different Masses and prayer services. In order to show her gratitude to Fr. Kichi for taking her in and to keep a part of her old life with her, Michelle helped out whenever she could.

Now that she was changed, she made her way back to the church. Humming some random church song that she used to sing at her old parish, Michelle busily began working in the sacristy trying to get everything ready before Fr. started helping her. It's not that she didn't want his help, but she wanted to prove that she could do it and because she didn't want him to worry about doing the menial work himself.

'_That's why my music minister loved me so much'_ she thought as a wave of pleasant memories flooded her.

Finished with the set-up and after getting approval from Fr., Michelle went back to her room. Normally she would stay for the service, but she had much to think about before her first day at a new school tomorrow.

Plopping onto her bed when she got back, she pulled out her laptop and after putting the ear-buds in her ears, put on her iPod. Smiling at the music that was playing, Michelle opened her Word program on the laptop. One of the ways that she coped with being so far away from her friends was by writing down random stories of fun times they shared together. She had already written about the youth group's visit to Hershey Park, the Confirmation Retreat, Holy Week 2010, and was currently working on the pilgrimage that her church made to Elizabeth-Ann Seton's home.

While she was typing about all the pleasant memories that she had from that day trip, Michelle's thoughts kept returning to the earlier events of the current day. She found herself thinking about all the new people that she met that day so much that she had to stop writing. Closing her laptop, Michelle moved over to her window and stared outside while she thought about what she got herself into.

'_I really enjoy being with them. They all seem so full of life and friendly. I really need that right now. Also, Kyouya provides me with a proper challenge. I'm going to enjoy figuring him out. I hope I figure out why 'they' told me to attend Ouran though…'_

By 'they' she was referring to the Witness Protection marshals that she worked with. They were the ones who actually 'suggested' that she apply for Ouran and interview to join the host club.

Looking at the piano watch she had on her wrist, a gift from a good friend back in America, Michelle realized that it was getting late.

'_I don't want to be groggy during my first day of school'_ she thought as she got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. After putting everything aside that she would need for the next day, Michelle jumped into bed and said her prayers. Shutting the lights off, her last thoughts were of her old life.

So this chapter I hope was satisfying since I've been building up to Michelle's secretive past. I hope everyone had a great holiday season and I'd love to hear any and all comments you might have :)


	5. Introduction of the New Host Chapter 5

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Five: Introduction of the New Host**

Yawning, Michelle hit the button on her alarm clock that shut the annoying buzzing sound off. It was 6:30 A.M. and Michelle didn't want to take any chances of being late.

Hating to get up early, but hating giving a bad first impression even more, she flopped out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. She was humming 'This is the Day' as she rushed around making sure that she had everything she needed. Looking at her watch she was impressed that she got ready in twenty-five minutes.

'_I guess I'll kill some time and eat breakfast'_ she thought as she slung her book bag over her yellow puffy shoulder and reached for the door handle.

'_I feel bad for Fr. since he celebrates a six, seven, and nine A.M. Mass each morning. Lord knows I couldn't do it'_

Michelle thought as she grabbed a muffin from the basket that was in the middle of the kitchen table downstairs. She pulled out one of the brown wicker chairs and plopped her book bag down next to her. Looking over her schedule for the twentieth time since she got it yesterday, she smiled at the fact that she placed so well in their admittance test that she was in all honors and AP classes. One more glance at her watch and she saw that it said 7:25 A.M.

'_Well, I guess it's now or never. It'll only take me about ten minutes to walk there, but I want to pray first.'_ She thought as she finished the last bite of her blueberry muffin.

She slunk into a pew near the back of the church and started to pray. Asking God to bless her, her parents, her old friends, and her new friends, Michelle blessed herself and walked out of the church trying to make as little noise as possible for the people who were still celebrating Mass.

'_Ah, what a beautiful winter day'_ Michelle thought as she took a deep breath before she walked down the stairs at the front of the church. Humming 'Oh, What a Beautiful Morning' as she walked with a pep in her step, she started her journey to her school.

Michelle was one of those people that could get totally immersed in her surroundings, especially if she was out in nature. Embracing each cool breeze that blew past her, enjoying every bird that chirped a happy song, and watching a pair of squirrels fighting over something, Michelle smiled to herself as she turned down the street that Ouran was on.

'_I knew that this was a school for rich kids, but damn!'_ the strawberry-blonde haired girl thought as her jaw slightly dropped when she saw all the limos dropping off students at the front of the building.

'_I've never seen so many limos in one place, not even at proms! Man, back home kids got to school in a bus. This is ridiculous'_ she thought as she approached the furthest corner of the school complex.

'_There is no way in hell that you will be able to blend in with these people unless you exude confidence. Head held high, shoulders back, and remember you are in control of yourself now'_ Michelle thought as she adjusted herself properly and walked with more determination to the entrance gate in the tall, black iron fence that surrounded the property.

Treating all of the stares that she was receiving, by either ignoring them completely or by meeting their glares with a smile, Michelle glided up the long walk to the school and up the stairs.

"Michelle-Sempai!" said two energetic voices behind her_._

'_Let's see, it's two voices and they sound the same. It must be the twins.'_ Michelle reasoned. _'What were their names again?'_

Before she had time to remember, she found herself being whisked around to face the identical smiling faces of Hikaru and Kaoru. Thanking God that she remembered their names as soon as she saw their faces, Michelle beamed a smile and said

"Good morning Hikaru and Kaoru!"

"I told you she'd remember our names Hikaru" the one on the left, apparently Kaoru said as he hit his brother on his arm.

"Of course I did" Michelle said, inwardly glad that they didn't know she almost had forgotten and that she could maintain her appearance of flawlessness. The three of them entered the school building together talking about what a beautiful day it was outside.

Michelle noticed that she was still getting stares from all of the students that they passed by as she walked with them to her classroom. The guys seemed to be checking her out, but every once and a while the girls were sending her death glares.

'_They must think that I'm encroaching on their secret claim on the twins' _she thought with a smirk.

"Well this is our class" the twins said in unison as they ducked into the classroom on her right.

"See ya at lunch" Michelle said as she continued walking down the hall. Remembering where Kyouya pointed out their homeroom and seeing the sign for class 2-A ahead of her, Michelle took one last deep breath before she stepped into the room.

Most of the students were standing in groups throughout the room and not sitting at their seats.

'_Great, I'm not going to sit down until they do because I don't want to sit in someone else's chair' _Michelle thought as she was trying to figure out what to do until then to avoid looking awkward.

Thankfully when you're around Tamaki, you never have to worry about not knowing what to do with your free time. Peering out of the largest group in the classroom, Tamaki noticed when the new host walked into the room, looking confused.

"MICHELLE-SAN" Tamaki squealed in his normal two octaves too high voice, "Welcome to our class!"

Seeing someone whom she recognized, Michelle happily walked over to him.

"Good Morning Tamaki, it's wonderful to see you again"

Michelle said with a smile as she reached the large group that encircled the blonde haired boy. Upon her arriving at his group, Tamaki rushed over to the blue eyed girl and gave her a huge, almost suffocating hug. Giving her the same look that she received in the hall with the twins, the girls around Tamaki glared at the newcomer who was being embraced by him and who dared to casually approach the guy that they laid claim on.

Noticing the chilled reception that his new friend was receiving, Tamaki let go of Michelle and charmingly turned to face the fan girls that surrounded him.

"Ladies" he began, "Allow me the honor of introducing you to the newest host of the Host Club, Michelle Rose Warner".

Thanks to his louder than normal voice, not only did all of the fan girls immediately turn their heads to face the strawberry-blonde haired girl, but all of the other students in the room did so as well at this shocking introduction.

'_Great, he just shoved a spotlight on me'_ Michelle thought as she tried to reposition her now mussed up dress thanks to Tamaki's massive hug and smiled uneasily at the fact that the entire room was silent and staring at her.

'_Snap out of it, be gracious'_ "It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you all" Michelle said as she flashed her signature dazzling smile at the crowd.

"How can she be a host?" several girls asked.

"Well madam-", Tamaki began, but was then cut off by Michelle.

"May I explain it Tamaki?" she asked dripping with politeness.

"But of course" Tamaki said as he dramatically bowed to her as if giving her the permission needed to continue_._

'_Breath'_ Michelle thought as she spoke up. "You see, the host club is a wonderful establishment for young ladies, such as yourself" she spoke as she sweetly gestured at the girls in front of her that were hanging on her every word.

"But I noticed that there isn't really a person for you to receive advice and consoling from. If you wouldn't mind, I would love to be able to help you when I could with that."

Pausing briefly so that her words could sink in, Michelle was amazed at the amount of excited chatter that fluttered around the room after she spoke. Questions and statements like:

"I'd love to talk to you!"

"What a wonderful idea!"

and "When do you officially start?"

were excitedly popping out of the mouths of the girls who just a minute ago looked like they wanted to kill her. A brave boy, situated at the far end of the room spoke up and said

"Can we also talk with you?"

Before she could answer all of the questions that were being thrown her way, Kyouya, who was sitting invisibly right behind the place that Michelle was standing, spoke up. Startled at the fact that she didn't see him, Michelle jumped as he said

"She starts this afternoon and I can take _all_ appointments whenever it is convenient for you".

He stressed the word 'all' so the boys knew that they could request time with her as well. A rush of people approached the dark haired boy who was casually and slowly pulling out his notebook and blocking out appointments for the newest host.

'_Wow, I was definitely not expecting this great of a response'_ Michelle thought. _'Are all the people in Japan bubbly and energetic?_' she thought as Tamaki broke her train of thought with a nudge on her shoulder and a wink in his eye. She met his smile, thanked him for introducing her, and asked him which seat would be hers.

"You get to sit right next to me and right in front of Kyouya, Michelle-San" he said as he pulled out her seat for her. As soon as she sat down, the bell rang and a flurry of students rushed by her to get to their seats before their teacher arrived.

Looking down at his notebook before he put it away, Kyouya smirked at the overwhelming increase in business the club received due to their new member.

'_That's an increase in business of 18.5% and that's only from this one classroom. Imagine how many new customers we'll have by the end of the day'_ he thought with a cool smile as he looked up at the teacher who was now going over roll call.

Hey! I wasn't planning on releasing another chapter so quickly, but I'm still on academic break and I received an overwhelming amount of 'fav author'. 'fav story', and 'story alerts' with my last chapter, so let me say…. THANK YOU! :D And a special thank you Acir for your kind comment!

I never thought I'd be the type of author who thrives on people's reactions to her story, but all of the recent responses to my last chapter motivated me to write this one, so I hope that you enjoy! And I hope that you continue to follow and comment on my story. Thank you soooo much again! :)


	6. Preparation Chapter 6

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own the rights to any of the songs that are listed, nor do I own the rights to Apple software

**Chapter Six: Preparation**

Three days have now passed by and Michelle's life already seemed to become a stable routine. Her mornings and evenings were spent helping Fr. Kichi in whatever way she could, her early afternoons were spent in school, her late afternoons were spent with the host club, and all free time was spent doing her homework. Even though she truly loved spending time in the church, Michelle found herself loving every moment that she was able to be around her new friends at the host club.

Even though she preferred it when it was just the seven of them, Michelle greatly appreciated being able to help the students that she could while she was working with them. Every day she found her entire club time already booked with girls and boys who wanted to talk with her. She was surprised at all of the stress that each of the students had due to their social standing and family pressure.

Ninety percent of the time, Michelle just listened to her customers rant and would occasionally dish out some sort of 'fortune cookie' advice. However, every once and a while, she would tell them a story about a similar experience that she lived through. Everyone who talked with Michelle seemed to feel better about their situation and would quickly rush to Kyouya after their session in order to make another appointment to talk with her.

She also was getting really good at avoiding any conversation that would cause her to talk about her friends back home. It's not that she didn't want to tell them all about the most amazing people she knew, but she was scared that if she said too much, her cover in the Witness Protection Program would be blown. She couldn't risk putting her old friends in danger if it was discovered where she was hiding. So, whenever someone asked her about her old friends or about her old life, Michelle would simply say that she didn't have any friends back home and would avoid talking about the topic all together.

At her comment, the customer usually started to feel bad for her and tried to make her feel better by letting her know that she had a friend in them. However, that response inwardly annoyed her since she really did have the most amazing friends back home, so she would politely thank them and change the subject.

Besides the fact that she didn't need her customers' friendship to fill a hole that they thought she had, Michelle had an inner complex that kept her from truly accepting their kindness. '_Perfect people don't need someone to feel bad for them. Crying and excepting someone to cheer you up makes you weak'_ was her mantra. It was a weird one since she truly loved helping others and never thought that they were weak for accepting help or crying, but she held herself to a stricter guideline.

She wouldn't tell anyone, but she was really nervous about tomorrow though.

Tomorrow was Friday and the mark of her first full week at school. That wasn't making her worry though since everything was flowing so smoothly.

The reason she was worried was because several of her customers found out that she sang and begged her to perform for them_._

'_What have I gotten myself into now? And I would like to know how they knew that I sang_' she thought as she pulled out her honors geometry book and placed it on the small desk in her room_._

'_My money's on Kyouya for that since he appeared out of nowhere when they started to ask me to sing for them.'_ She thought a little bit more and then decided '_Yeah, I definitely think that he planned it, since the next thing I knew he was selling tickets for the performance tomorrow. I still think that he was kidding when he said that he was only allowing the first fifty students to buy tickets as a gimmick to get the students to buy them all._

Finishing her geometry homework with ease, Michelle started to think about the songs that she would sing for the host club the next day.

'_Since this is a showcase for both me and Tamaki, we both will have solo pieces. Well, he will since I need him to play the background music._

'_Oh, that's right. Tamaki asked for this list ASAP so that we could practice in the morning, during lunch, and before the performance at five tomorrow evening' _she thought as she listed all of the songs that she was the most comfortable with singing_._

'_Kyouya also wanted the list so that he could print out programs. And I can't forget to get this list to the twins as well, since they want to make sure that I'm always wearing the proper outfit with each song'._

Smiling at the ten songs that she picked out for the performance tomorrow, Michelle felt good with the selection. Here is what her paper looked like:

'The Prologue' from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

'I Have a Dream' from Mama Mia

'Almost There' from the Princess and the Frog

'In Harmony' from the Little Mermaid TV show

'Popular' from Wicked

'Good Morning Baltimore' from Hairspray

'When There Was Me and You' from High School Musical

'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' from Evita

'Maybe This Time' from Cabaret

'Part of Your World' from the Little Mermaid

Even though she was slightly worried at some of the costumes that the twins might make her put on, Michelle knew that she picked a good range of songs. She especially smiled at the fact that she was able to put 'her' song at the end, as a dramatic finale. Putting her paper aside, Michelle looked at her watch before she started on her AP Japanese History_._

'_Oh, it's almost six o'clock, I need to go help Fr. Kichi with the Bible Study that he's holding tonight downstairs'_ she thought as she closed her history book, grabbed her personal Bible, and reached for the door.

"Ah, Michelle, how's the homework coming?" Fr. Kichi said with a smile as he saw his house guest rush down the stairs to help him.

"I've finished my math, science, grammar, computer, and music homework Father" Michelle said as she started to set up the snacks in the small kitchen area for the people who were coming for the Bible Study.

Recognizing that she left out one of her subjects, Fr. Kichi asked "and what about your Japanese history homework?"

Amazed that he already had memorized her classes, Michelle paused her work for a second and said

"It's really easy tonight Father. I'll have no problem finishing it after the Bible Study".

Jokingly scolding her, Fr. Kichi wagged his finger at her and said "As long as you get to sleep at a proper time young lady".

The two laughed at that comment and continued to get everything ready while people were beginning to come in.

After the Bible Study, which was one of the best that she had ever attended, Michelle opened her history book again once she was in her room. Finishing that assignment with no problem, just as she told the priest she would, she turned on her iPod and started practicing the songs that she would be performing the next day. After practicing each song at least twice and making sure that the blocking was appropriate, Michelle shut her music player off and started getting ready for bed. Still having about twenty minutes of free time before she needed to head off to sleep, Michelle found herself pulling out her laptop.

Instead of writing tonight, she simply looked over pictures of all her old friends and listening to her most valued song tracks. These were the ones that her music minister recorded of her old choir. Smiling as she sang along in parts, picking out certain people's voices, and just simply listening to the pianist play, Michelle found herself extremely homesick.

'_It made sense when I left, but now I'm having the hardest time trying to figure out why I needed to be put in the Witness Protection Program. Another thing that doesn't make sense is the fact that I was relocated to Japan. I thought that they could only keep an eye on you when you were _in_ the country.'_

Michelle thought as she shut off her computer and was trying to remind herself why she had to leave everyone that she loved behind.

'_Hopefully I'll be able to figure that out someday.'_ She thought as she shut the light off and reminded herself that she needed to have a rested body and voice for tomorrow.

Hey guys! I'm back! I'm sorry that this chapter is so short and focuses basically only on Michelle, but I promise the next chapter will focus mainly on Kyouya. I'm really looking forward to trying to get his true shadow kingness across, so it might take a little while and I'll def want comments when I post it to see if I got his character right :) Thank you again for all those who have added me as 'fav author'. 'fav story', and signing up for 'story alerts'! 

Thank you soooo much again! :)


	7. Kyouya's Thoughts Chapter 7

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Seven: Kyouya's Thoughts**

-Snap-

Kyouya shut his phone after receiving an update on the location of the newest host member. It's Thursday and Michelle has been a part of the host club since last Sunday. Annoyed that he hadn't been able to get any more information on her since the first day he met her, Kyouya appointed one the guards in his family's private force to keep tabs on her.

He was currently sitting in the music room, typing away at the logistics of the performance that he manipulated her into doing with Tamaki. He smirked at the fact that she was as easy to manipulate as the other host members were, since he was slightly worried at first that she wouldn't be.

'_She's also brought in a whole new influx of customers.'_

Kyouya thought as he found the budget easier to manage for the past week. He pushed up his glasses and continued to type away, trying his best to ignore his loud surroundings.

It wasn't Hunny or Mori who were bothering him, since Hunny was silently munching on his cake while his taciturn cousin just sat next to him. Indeed, the bubbly senior was always perfectly content if he had a slice of cake in front of him. The tall black haired male, Mori was a man of little words and never seemed to desire doing anything without his little cousin. Since Hunny found solace in the host club and felt like he could be himself there, Mori was happy to be a member as well.

"GET BACK HERE YOU DEVIL TWINS!" shrieked Tamaki.

The twins had discovered a new way to annoy the host club's king and were currently running away from the frenzied victim of their newest prank with wide grins on their faces. Finding the noise level of the room too much for him to handle, Kyouya pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back the migraine that was approaching, and shut his laptop off.

Silently leaving the club room without anyone noticing him, Kyouya decided to double check if Michelle was still where his guard had reported she was.

"Yes sir, Ootori-sama. She is still at Heavenly Savior Church" the voice said on the other end of Kyouya's phone call.

"Good" Kyouya said as he disconnected the call and continued to walk down the hallways of the school towards the exit of the building.

'_She's been there for the past two hours'_ Kyouya thought. '_Surely she should be at home by now in order to study and prepare for the concert tomorrow'._

Remembering that he passes a church that's called Savior something every morning, Kyouya asked Tachibana if he knew the location of Heavenly Savior while he stepped into his black limo. His driver confirmed the grey eyed boy's recollection and said that they pass a church with that name on his route from the Ootori estate to the school every morning. Closing the door and sitting comfortably in the chilled area, Kyouya pulled out his laptop to research the church that Michelle was at, while his driver pulled away from Ouran Academy.

'_Hmm, there seems to be a Bible Study there this evening'_ Kyouya discovered as his fingers were flying across the keyboard. _'She must be attending that'_ he thought as he closed his laptop, satisfied that he solved the mystery.

This time when they were driving by the church, his driver pointed it out to the tall boy who was sitting in the back. After casually glancing at the building, Kyouya picked up his notebook and spent the rest of his ride back home working on the seating chart for the music performance the next day.

***Three hours later***

Finishing the last of his homework in record time, Kyouya, who was sitting on his large grey bed, looked at his cell phone and scowled.

'_I thought I told Asunna to call me the second that he saw Michelle leaving the church. The event she was attending cannot still be going on' _he thought as he glanced at his watch.

'_If he lost tabs on her or if he's slacking off, there will be hell to pay'_ he thought as he opened his phone and speed dialed the guard who was keeping an eye on the strawberry-blonde host.

"Ootori-sama" said a shocked Asunna.

"Ah, so you are still aware of who I am" Kyouya said coolly, seething with displeasure as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Would you care to enlighten me as to why you ignored my order of calling me when Michelle left the church" Kyouya said, awaiting an answer that would determine the transfer of the seemingly insubordinate guard.

"Sir" Asunna responded, "She never left the church."

Thinking that his employee was unable to successfully shadow a high school girl, the grey eyed boy calculated '_If he's this incompetent, he is going to be transferred to the furthest reaches of the Ootori family business' _while he continued his conversation.

"Are you telling me that you lost her" hissed the rich boy with an evil glare in his eyes that would have surely blazed a hole into his guard, if he were in the room as well.

"No sir" Asunna said with fear for his job, "There is only one exit out of the church and after the Bible Study, everyone in attendance filtered out that door, except for her. Also, I saw a light in the upper floor of the house next to the church turn on about a half hour after the meeting ended."

Pushing up his glasses, yet again, Kyouya asked, "You do realize that could just be the priest going to bed?" while trying not to show how much this frustrating conversation made him want to shatter something with his bare hands

"Ootori-sama, the priest left the house with the members of the Bible Study. They were talking about going out to eat at the local café" Asunna stated.

Shocked that his guard might not have failed and that Michelle might be staying at the church, Kyouya grunted

"Inform me as soon as she leaves" before he slammed his phone shut.

'_That makes no sense'_ Kyouya thought as he pulled up his laptop to check his profile on her again.

_She stated on the first day that she was staying with family members that lived in Japan. Could she be related to the priest?'_ Again with his fingers flying away, Kyouya pulled up all the information that he could on the priest. Pulling up the man's entire genealogy, Kyouya skimmed through it.

'_It says here that all of his family either comes from Japan or Korea. Nowhere does it mention any family from America. Also'_ he thought as he rechecked his previous notes on Michelle, '_She specifically said that she would be staying with her aunt and uncle_

'_This new girl's past is becoming more and more difficult to figure out. Every time I think I've found out something, I hit a dead end. Just like now. She knows proper manners, how to carry herself, and seems to be able to interact with wealthier people with ease, unlike most Americans. I would have thought that she came from a well-to-do family, but I would have heard about an American heiress moving to Japan.'_ The boy thought as he pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his laptop down in defeat.

Realizing that it was getting late and there was no way that he could solve this enigma tonight, Kyouya removed his glasses and put them on the nightstand. After he shut off his bedroom lights, he tried to figure out a logical reason for the amount of secrecy behind the seemingly innocent young lady's past before succumbing to sleep.

Hey all! Ok, so this chapter was a little hard to write since I wanted to make sure I got Kyouya's personality down… Please tell me what you think! Did I portray him right? I'm really working on my character descriptions, so let me know what you think. Thank you in advance and once again, thank you all who have signed up for story alerts and so on :) See Ya Soon!


	8. Rehearsal Chapter 8

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own any of the songs mentioned.

Chapter Eight: Rehearsal

"Our Difference is our Differences, may be small or great. Variety adds spice to life, so we should celebrate. In harmony, harmony" sang the newest member of the host club, while Tamaki played a bouncy and tropical sounding background melody.

It was six in the morning and all of the hosts were gathered in the music room for their first rehearsal before the show that evening. All the hosts were busy at work that morning.

Michelle and Tamaki were working out the tempos and intros for each of the songs.

Kyouya was typing away, finalizing the programs that would be given to each of the audience members in attendance that evening.

The twins were running around getting all of the elaborate costumes and props ready.

And like they usually did, Mori and Hunny were 'busy' sitting on a couch silently watching and in Hunny's case, eating cake.

"The next song is called 'Popular'" Tamaki stated as he looked at the list that Michelle lay next to his sheet music. Michelle yawned as she annoyingly thought about how early she had to be up that morning in order to be in the music room on time.

"Is it about me?" Tamaki asked with a huge grin on his face as he swiveled on his piano bench in order to face the strawberry blonde girl, awaiting her answer with true child-like anticipation_._

'_Wow, I can't tell if he's kidding or not'_ Michelle sarcastically thought as she chuckled a falsely polite giggle and started to correct him. "No, it's from a play called Wicked and is about a girl who is giving another girl a complete and total make-over" she said.

"Did someone say" Hikaru started.

"Make-over?" Kaoru finished.

Seeming to appear from nowhere, Michelle soon found the twins hanging over her shoulders and each with of them staring at her intensely with large and devilish grins on their faces.

"Yes, the popular girl in the play decides to give the shy girl a lesson on how to be popular and gives her a quick little make-over during the song" Michelle responded and a little creeped out by how close the two red heads were to her face, but refusing to show her discomfort at the situation.

"I have a BRILLIANT idea" Tamaki exclaimed with his pointer finger wagging in the air as the tall blonde enthusiastically leapt from his seat at the piano. The twins were caught off guard at Tamaki's exclamation, they let go of their leaning post and recoiled slightly from their tono. Jumping back from the excited boy a little bit herself, Michelle just looked at him with a quizzical look twinkling in her blue eyes. Before she, or anyone else had to ask him to elaborate, Tamaki said

"We can have an audience member participate in this song!"

He finished by flashing a smile that bordered more on creepy to Michelle as he placed both arms on her shoulders and drew her closer to his intensely happy face.

"Hmm", said Michelle as she pondered his suggestion, ignoring the fact that he was so close to her that she could feel the warmth of the prince's breath upon her face.

"That actually might work" she muttered.

That was all Tamaki and the twins needed. The next thing she knew, Hikaru and Kaoru each grabbed an arm as soon as Tamaki let go of her, and they hoisted her in the air as they all sped over to Kyouya in order to ask him if they could enact the plan that they were forming during the show.

"While Michelle is singing" Kaoru started

"We can grab someone from the audience and give her a make-over" Hikaru finished as the two plopped Michelle back onto the ground.

Thinking that it would be a perfect gimmick to add to the program, _'and when these shows become a regular event, we can charge for the honor of getting a make-over done by the twins' _Kyouya thought as he approved the suggestion. Whisking her back over to the piano barely recovering from the shock of being swept over to Kyouya, the four of them started to block the song together.

"Well, this is going to be hard without a test dummy" the twins said in unison as they realized that they needed to time the make-over in order to properly fit it in the time frame of the song.

"I'll do it!"Hunny chirped with excitement at the thought that he could help out, and jumped up from his seat to skip over to the piano. Forgetting her manners for a brief second, Michelle bluntly laughed at the thought of Hunny in make-up. She completely ignored the excited tiny senior in front of her and turned to the twins suggesting that they use one of the mannequins that the two had instead. Agreeing with her, since they really didn't want to put make-up on the honey blonde, the twins rushed out to get a mannequin.

Completely disheartened that his assistance wasn't needed, Hunny started to slowly walk back to his seat with his head drooping down. Feeling bad for the dejected looking little boy and not wanting to seem like the bad guy due to her blunt reaction, Michelle pleadingly said, and in an attempt to restore her sweet image

"Even though we don't need your help for this song, I could really use your assistance in the beginning of 'Almost There' Hunny-Senpai, that is if you still are willing to help out".

Smiling a wide and overly excited grin, complete with puppy dog eyes glistening and dripping with hope, Hunny turned back to the girl and asked

"Really?"

"Definitely! In the beginning the character is singing to her mother, but I can easily change the words so that I can sing to you, that way it will flow even better if I have someone to sing to."

Michelle said matching his smile. Happy that he could be of some use in the show, Hunny skipped back over to his seat and contently started to munch on his cake again. Kyouya fixed his glasses and smirked when he saw how Michelle handled that situation with Hunny.

'_She's good, I'll give her that. It seems I'm not the only one who is capable of manipulating others, even though I obviously am better at it than she is'_ he thought before focusing on his pineapple laptop again and trying to block out the rest of the performance digitally.

Barely finished with the first run through of all of the songs, Mori said "It's seven forty-five".

Everyone froze in shock for a second because the silent host spoke, but soon the hosts realized that he was right and started to quickly clean up and getting ready for class.

"Now remember that we will all meet back here during lunch" Tamaki said as Hunny and Mori turned the opposite way out of the club room.

"See you then" the little blonde chirped as he quickly scampered onto his cousin's shoulders while they walked away. Entering their room a little later, Michelle and Tamaki waved 'see ya' to the twins as the two red heads continued down the hall to their own home room. As soon as the second year students entered 2-A's classroom, a flock of chattering fan girls approached the two performers.

"I'm so excited about this evening" and

"I can't wait to hear you sing Michelle-san"

seemed to be what every girl was excitedly saying. Getting into host mode, Michelle gave them a sweet smile and said

"I am excited to be able to entertain you wonderful ladies with my simple talent as well."Smiling at her response and at the attention they were getting, Tamaki added

"We had our first rehearsal today and you ladies are in for a truly delightful evening".

After his comment, though it was due to his typical overly dramatic presentation, several girls swooned. Before anything else could be said, the bell rang signifying the start of the school day.

'_The first performance is always the hardest. The audience doesn't know what to expect and it's hard to tell what will be the most successful gestures to engage them.'_ Michelle daydreamed as she ignored the morning announcements_. 'I know that the host club like the way I sound, but what if the other students are expecting something else? I mean, if they set their sights too high, which is bound to happen with this overly exuberant group, they will be disappointed with how I sound. However, I do remember the first time I solo cantored back home. That was perfect…'_

Michelle jumped as she could feel coolness through the material of her dress as a hand touched her shoulder from behind, snapping her out of her train of thought.

"Michelle-San" Kyouya said emotionlessly, "If the show fails to please our guests, you will be responsible for all of the costs that went into tonight's performance".

Not wanting him to know that she was almost scared stiff at that threat, Michelle coolly turned around and said

"That's quite the pessimistic attitude Kyouya-San. There's no way that I can envision this evening's performance as being anything short of spectacular".

'_She's not even easily intimidated by the thought of being indebted to an Ootori'_ He quizzically thought as she turned around to face the front.

"Interesting" he muttered with a smirk as he repositioned his glasses and focused on the teacher.

Hey all! I'm back! Thank you once again for all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on and a special thanks to EternalBeauty for your wonderful comment! I just love hearing from you guys! Seriously, please let me know what you guys think :) I hope you all are enjoying this story as much as I am and I'll See Ya Soon!


	9. The Performance Part 1 Chapter 9

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own any of the songs mentioned

**Chapter Nine: The Performance Part I**

'_Oh my gosh, he wasn't kidding when he said that there were going to be fifty people here today'_

Michelle thought as she nervously peeked out of the red velvet curtain that was drawn around the piano. _'There is not an empty seat out there! I never knew that so many people would show up'_

"We had to turn over one hundred and twenty perspective customers away due to our small performance space" a cool and emotionless voice said in her ear. Jumping at the fact that Kyouya was literally standing over her shoulder, that he was reading her mind, and due to the nerves of her upcoming recital, Michelle stuttered at his comment and was unable to fully form an answer out loud.

"Assuming that this performance is successful, we have the next seven shows sold out" he said, secretly happy that he had caught her off guard. Shocked at the popularity of an event that hadn't even started, Michelle had to summon every ounce of her will power to calmly respond to Kyouya. She knew that he was reveling in her shock and refused to let him have that satisfaction, for long at least.

"How wonderful. I've found that the more of a demand for a show, the more interested and serious the audience is during the performance" she said with a confident smile on her face, inwardly thanking her mom for all those years in the pageant circuit that she was exposed to.

'_Poise under pressure was always shoved down our throats and it definitely comes in handy here'_ she thought as she awaited her antagonizer's response.

"How true. The best performances are done with a truly engaged audience" he responded noting to himself how quickly she bounced back from an uncomfortable situation_._

'_That usually takes years of breeding, how would she have learnt such a talent?'_ he thought bowing at the girl and then walking away to help with the last minute preparations.

Breathing a sigh of relief that she was able to maintain her mask of perfection, Michelle thought _'Why does he throw me off so much? No one has ever been able to knock off my mask when I'm in 'interaction' mode.'_

Before she could think any more about the subject, Michelle found herself being crushingly grasped by two lean arms.

"Oh isn't this so exciting" squealed a voice from behind her. Not needing to turn around to see her embracer's face, she struggled to say

"It most certainly is Tamaki! Not trying to be rude, but I kinda need the lungs that you are crushing right now for the performance." He released her immediately and started to apologize profusely as she turned to face the contrite face of the blonde haired boy.

"No need to apologize Tamaki. You're simply getting caught up in the excitement of the show" she said flashing her smile in order to quell the tears that were forming in his eyes again_._

'_I can't believe how overly sensitive this boy is' _she thought as she slightly sneered, under her mask of sweetness, at his tendency to over react to everything.

"Tono, stop monopolizing your time with her" came the annoyed voices of the two red headed boys that were now standing with the two performers.

"It's time to-" Kaoru started.

"Get you ready for the show" Hikaru ended as he and his brother grabbed Michelle by her arms. Tossing her into the dressing room like they did on the first day, the twins left her alone to get into her first dress.

"Remember to let us know when you are done" they said as they closed the curtain behind them.

In front of Michelle in the dressing room there hung a truly beautiful silver dress. It was floor length and the bottom was made of the most beautiful satin/chiffon mix that the blue eyed girl had ever seen. The top was strapless and heart shaped with what seemed like diamonds sewn in a delicate floral pattern.

"Knowing the source, I'd actually bet that these are real diamonds" she quietly said as she gingerly touched the design. Changing into the dress very gingerly, Michelle slightly gasped as she caught a glance of herself in the mirror. Despite her actions, Michelle had a very low-self image of herself. She never would describe herself as pretty, but this dress fit like a dream.

'_Those twins really know a girl's body shape'_ she thought as she slowly spun around to get a better look. The dress just flowed with the slightest movement on her part.

'_This will look great with a spotlight on it' _she thought, still in marvel of the gorgeous dress that she had the privilege of wearing.

"Done" she said after a couple more minutes examining the amount of work that went into the creation of the dress. Like a hurricane, the twins rushed in and did her make-up, hair, and jewelry once again. Since her opening song didn't require a wig, the twins fixed her hair like Veronica Lake's, so that it would frame her face better. Stepping back to admire their work, the twins gave each other a satisfied nod of approval and escorted her back to the piano. There was wireless microphone there for her, upon her request, and she clipped it on.

Tamaki also stepped out of the dressing room at that time and was wearing a stunning silver suit that matched her dress perfectly. He had diamond accents throughout his outfit as well. His cuff links, tie clip, top hat, and the heel of his shoes were all bedazzled in diamonds. Smiling at the sight of the other in their respective outfit, Tamaki and Michelle whispered

"Break a leg".

They were soon met with the smooth sound of Kyouya's voice. Since the two of them had to worry about so many costume changes during the performance, the role of MC was passed on to the vice president of the host club.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen" he charmingly began with a slight bow.

Kyouya was wearing a simple Armani black suit that made him look ten times richer than he already was.

'_Wow, he looks amazing' _Michelle thought as she caught a glance of him through a slit in the curtain. Quickly praying that her performance would go well, Michelle noticed that Tamaki was taking his seat on the piano bench to get ready. Following his cue, Michelle went to stand in the crook of the piano and waited for the lights to go out, signifying the start of the show.

The twins had arranged that Tamaki would start playing in the dark and when she started to sing, a spotlight would hit Michelle. It was a simple, but striking way to start the show they reasoned when they helped her block it earlier that morning.

"So without further ado, the host club is proud to present Suoh, Tamaki and Warner, Michelle"

Kyouya stated as he formally extended his hand to the curtain and took his seat at the side of the stage. While the audience was clapping, the lights were dimmed by Mori, who was in charge of lighting that evening.

The curtain opened, the crowd hushed, and Tamaki started to play the introduction to 'The Prologue' from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Looking downwards, so as not to be staring directly into the light when it hit her, Michelle said a quick prayer once again.

"Some folks dream of the wonders they'll do, before their time on this planet is through"

Michelle started to sing as the spotlight turned on. Getting the reaction that they were hoping for, the twins smiled at each other when they heard a small gasp from the audience as the singer's dress sparkled under the light

Besides being pleased with the reaction from the crowd, Kaoru was himself in awe on how the lights seemed to make the girl glow angelically. Not understanding why he felt that way towards the female host all of a sudden, since he only cares about his brother, the confused twin just focused on Tamaki's current dramatic playing in order to get his mind off of Michelle.

Not looking to the side of the stage, the red heads failed to see that Kyouya also slightly opened his eyes wider in awe when the spotlight hit the strawberry blonde host. Not being one to typically show much emotion, that simple gesture outside was met with a whirlwind of thoughts inside the grey eyed boy's mind.

'_The twins were right when they sprang for the more expensive dress'_ he thought, trying to keep his mind as neutral as possible about the girl in front of him. After all, she was the most annoying presence in his life right now and well, what profit would be gained from thinking of her as anything more than a pawn in his game?

Improvising as he made a key change to the next song, Tamaki was truly getting swept into the showmanship of the performance. Happy that she did a good job with her first song, Michelle lost all of the butterflies that she had in her stomach earlier as she started to sing the next song. Knowing that after this song there would be a costume change, Kyouya quietly pulled up his notebook to glance over at the speech he wrote for the first intermission.

'_Everything is going smoothly so far. I never worried about Tamaki, because to him the world is a stage and a show that he is always prepared for. But, it's good to know that Michelle is able to withstand the pressure of a demand performance'_

Kyouya thought as he heard the last refrain of 'I Have a Dream' begin.

'_Here we go again'_ the dark haired MC thought as he stood up while the curtain closed, to fill the empty space.

Hey all! Yay! The performance has finally begun! This one was really fun to write and I've thrown in a little twist as to "love interests" for Michelle. I always thought that Kaoru should be the one to really step up and try to get the girl for himself, so let's see how this goes ;) Also, there's going to be a really fun twist coming up soon, so stay tuned! As always, thank you all who have signed up for story alerts and so on :) See Ya Soon!


	10. The Performance Part 2 Chapter 10

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor Ariel/"Part of Your World".

Chapter Ten: The Performance Part II

"Part of your world" was echoing through the room as Michelle looked longingly up at the ceiling, signaling the end of the performance.

"I'll be there someday" she said to the audience still fully in her character as Ariel while Tamaki finished playing the last measures of the song. Upon hitting the final chord in Tamaki's typical dramatic style, Mori cut the lights so Michelle could quickly be rolled backstage so she could change into her outfit for the curtain call.

'_This is the seventh costume change! Man, those twins completely went overboard'_

Michelle thought as she rushed with the speed of light to get into a white and lavender full skirted ball gown. The taffeta dress had an elegant portrait collar that was lined with lavender brocade, an accent that trimmed the bottom of the dress and made an upside down v in the back of her dress from her waist down to the hem of the slightly poufy skirt. Complimenting the pale purple trim was a pair of long lavender gloves that the blue eyed girl was currently rolling up her arm as fast as she could without tearing the material.

"Seriously, I only sang ten songs…" she exasperatedly muttered to herself.

"Are you ready for the lights yet?" Tamaki whispered anxiously on the other side of the dressing room door as he slightly trembled with excitement. He couldn't wait to get back to the uproarious crowd that was clapping and shouting for an encore. Since this was the type of attention that the blonde boy lived for, he made his costume change quicker than Michelle, even though his final outfit was also complicated to put on. Tamaki was current wearing a five-piece lavender and white tux that complimented his performance partner's outfit, just as the first costume did. His accents of the elegant brocaded lavender were in the lapels of the tux, the vest, a stripe on the outside of his pants legs, and on the spats that he wore over his shoes; everything else was a dazzling pure white.

"One second, the zipper's stuck" Michelle quietly said with a little bit of agitation in her voice. Luckily, before she had to turn down Tamaki's offer to help her _–zip-,_ she pulled the zipper shut.

"Ok, ready" she said as she immerged from the dressing room for what seemed like the billionth time that night. She took the arm that Tamaki had offered to her as he got ready to cue Hunny to pull back the red velvet curtain that separated the two blondes from their fans.

"Wait!" the twins whisper-shouted as they rushed over to the two performers, causing them to halt in their tracks and spin around to face the hazel-eyed twins.

"You can't go out-" Hikaru started.

"Without your tiara" Kaoru finished as he ceremoniously held out a simple, but sparkling diamond tiara for the blue eyed host to don. The tiara was a truly gorgeous piece of jewelry that simply glittered, despite the fact that they were in a dimly lit backstage area at the time. Getting somewhat used to all of the expensive items that they were giving her to wear and being used to wearing crowns from before, without any words, Michelle lowered her head as she took her arm away from Tamaki's, so that Kaoru could place the tiara onto her head himself.

Kaoru's heart stopped beating for a moment and he felt a rush of blood flow to his cheeks as he saw the girl in front of him bow her head so he could put the item in his hands upon her soft strawberry blonde tresses. Completely confused as to why he was getting so flustered at the thought of crowning the girl in front of him, Kaoru hesitated a moment before he slowly reached out with the tiara.

"NO NO NO!"

Tamaki loudly whispered, causing the strangely timid Kaoru to stop in his tracks.

"It's the job of the prince to crown the princess!" The host club's prince said as he carefully yanked the tiara from the other boy's grasp

"The tiara's from our mom's collection, therefore we get to do it" Hikaru argued back, completely oblivious to the fact that his brother seemed to be too confused with his current feelings to really care about the small argument that his twin and his boss were having over the glittering piece of jewelry.

Tired of the constant bickering between the three of them and wanting to get back outside to eliminate the current dead space on the stage, Michelle just grabbed the crown, which was currently in both Hikaru's and Tamaki's hands as if they were playing tug-of-war with the item, and she simply placed it upon her head herself.

Shocked that she basically yanked it from them as she hurriedly whispered "I'm sorry, but I'll just put it on myself", the boys stood there for several seconds before the twins quietly slunk back to their seats out front.

Michelle placed her arm inside Tamaki's again and said "Now are you ready?" noticing that he was slightly pouting at the fact that he wasn't allowed to place the tiara on her head. Snapping out of it instantaneously, Tamaki nodded with a large smile on his face as he grandly signaled for Hunny to open the curtains and Mori to turn on the lights.

Moments before the curtain opened, the MC for the evening was sitting in his chair, agitated that the two performers were taking so long getting ready for their curtain call. In his displeasure, Kyouya decided that he would put them on the spot when they emerged.

'_Since they made their audience wait so long, they should do an encore as a gesture that they are sorry for the delay'_ he thought with a smirk as he tried to figure out how to word it so Michelle wouldn't be able to say no. He was only concerned about getting Michelle to agree, since he knew his flamboyant best friend never turned down an opportunity to entertain others.

Jolting the grey eyed boy from his scheming thoughts, he noticed that the audience suddenly all leapt to their feet, while still applauding, when the lights turned on, the curtain pulled back, and the two musicians emerged.

'_Wow, this is actually a really nice feeling. I can't believe that people actually enjoyed the show._' Michelle thought as she beamed a genuine smile at the attention that Tamaki and she received from their audience as they took their place in center stage.

'_No'_, the blue eyed girl thought as her smile instantly switched to a fake one, a switch which no one noticed '_they just have to just be being polite or clapping at Tamaki. A person like me isn't good enough to receive this amount of praise'_. Unfortunately, once again Michelle's problem with perfection prevented her from thinking that she was worthy of any of the applause that was ringing through the entire music room.

Not having the same problem as his companion, Tamaki exclaimed joyously "Thank you, thank you" as he began to dramatically take a bow. Getting so caught up in the applause, he forgot for a moment that Michelle's arm was under his and he pulled her down with him as he bowed. This sudden jolt of movement caught her off balance and before she even had time to react, Michelle found herself being yanked to the ground. In a blur, the two blondes tumbled face first onto the hard marble floor and a hush fell over the room.

The sudden motion of her being hurled forward to the ground also flung the tiara off of Michelle's head, since she hadn't secured it properly backstage. Acting quickly, and being the only one to react immediately, Hunny lunged forward in an attempt to catch the glittering accessory as it flew in the air. Luckily he managed to catch it, saving it from shattering all across the room, but in the process the little host bumped into an expensive vase.

'_Hmm, this works better than putting her on the spot with an encore'_ the grey eyed boy thought as he pushed his glasses up with a smirk. He uncrossed his arms and pulled out his always present notebook to check on the price of the vase which broke the silence in the room by loudly shattering into a million pieces.

Flushed as red as humanly possible, Michelle blushed from embarrassment as she stared at the ground, pinned to the cold marble by the slim and tall frame of Tamaki.

'_Oh God, I know that everyone here saw that. How embarrassing! You were supposed to leave all your imperfections in America. Graceful people don't lose their balance, regardless of the reason they were thrown off balance'_ Michelle grimaced to herself as she prayed that the uncomfortable silence would be broken by something. Being in such a state of mortification, the girl host actually didn't hear the vase crash to the floor mere moments before her current prayer.

Taking a second to wrap his head around what happened, the clumsy king of the host club soon jumped up and off of the girl as he reached out to help Michelle to her feet. Gushing apologies as he helped her stand, Tamaki gazed into the blue eyes of Michelle, looking just like a sad and worried puppy that just chewed his master's favorite slipper and was begging for forgiveness. The twins also rushed to help her up as did several of the boys who were in attendance at the show that night, much to Michelle's chagrin.

Mori quietly left his post at the lights to go and check on Hunny, the little boy who apparently no one else noticed saved the tiara.

"I'm fine, no need to worry"

Michelle said as politely as she could without showing the mortification that she was feeling at the moment, a feeling that was definitely increased by all of the commotion that she was now receiving.

"I'm perfectly alright" she said again and then turned to Tamaki to ask "are you alright?"

The girl did this as an attempt to transfer the attention that was currently on her onto her fellow musician. Before he could say that he was fine, Kyouya stepped forward and said with his silky smooth voice and gracious false smile,

"Everyone, thank you for your concern but our two talented hosts are just fine. At this time, if you would like to congratulate them on their performance, I invite you to do so" he finished, extending an inviting arm to the two still slightly shaken blondes. Suddenly there were two lines of people wanting to talk to each entertainer to tell them how much they loved the performance.

Glad that he was able to end that awkward situation, Kyouya stalked over to where the two seniors were.

"Are you alright Hunny-sempai?" he asked with false concern, for he knew that Hunny was just fine.

"I'm ok Kyo-Chan, but I'm afraid that I knocked over and broke the Rune vase you just re-ordered" the Hunny blonde said with sadness in his voice. Before the little host could start crying at his clumsiness, Kyouya stated coolly

"It wasn't your fault Hunny-sempai. Hikaru and Kaoru didn't properly secure the tiara to Michelle's head. You were simply saving the item from being damaged".

At the mention of their names, the twins rushed over to Hunny, Mori, and Kyouya in order to defend themselves.

"It wasn't our fault" they exclaimed in unison.

"Before we had a chance to put it on for her-" Kaoru started.

"Michelle took it from us and placed it upon her head" Hikaru finished, both of them truly annoyed that the shadow king thought they were too incompetent to secure a tiara to a girl's head.

Smirking evilly because he figured that was what happened, Kyouya, looking at the floor, fixed his glasses and said, "Then this mess was caused by Michelle".

Feeling evil radiating from the hypertensive demon in front of them and realizing that they had just signed their friend's doom, the twins tried to cover up the fact that it really was the blue eyed girl's fault that the vase ended up being destroyed. Dismissing their efforts to cover up their slip up with a wave of his hand, Kyouya pulled out his notebook again and started to plan a way to use this new debt against the unsuspecting girl.

Unable to take back what they had just said, the twins simply left their seniors and joined Tamaki and Michelle at the piano so they could receive orders for any of the dresses that Michelle wore during the show. They reasoned that by using the girl host as a model would be a convenient gimmick for them to showcase their mother's latest spring line, on top of supplying the show with a little extra glitz. Being completely right about this act of marketing, the hazel eyed twins received dozens of orders that night, much to their delight.

In the meanwhile and left with the shattered remains of the vase, Mori started to brush it up while Hunny shuffled backstage in order to put the tiara safely away.

Kyouya just went backstage to calculate his next move, truly satisfied that he finally had something to hold over his current annoyance's head.

Hey everyone! Here's another chapter for you to enjoy over Spring Break. As for making Michelle indebted to the Host Club, I just couldn't resist ;) It'll make for some really interesting twists I have coming up and it makes sense for her to be forced to tag along with the guys on "off" days, otherwise she'd be too wrapped up in her church work. As always, thank you so much for all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on, you guys really make me feel happy :) I'd love to hear some more comments since I truly love hearing from you guys! See Ya Again Soon!


	11. Indebted Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven: Indebted**

"Let me congratulate all of you for making our début host club talent exhibition a success" Kyouya said in his silky smooth voice along with a small and approving smile.

It was now seven o'clock at night and all of the host club members sat on the velvet couches in the music room as they listened to the vice president, who was standing in front of them, speak. All of them were physically exhausted since not only did the performance drain a lot from them, but the clean-up afterwards did as well.

However, only three of the club members had actually earned the right to complain about being tired. Even though there are seven of them, only Mori, Hunny, and Michelle did any of the work putting things away and cleaning up.

Tamaki flitted around the room, making grand and dramatic gestures saying "Oh, to be so blessed by God to not only have a perfect body and soul, but to have the ability to entertain the fair maidens and gentlemen of our school with the humble talent of my musical skills" and other like statements, still on an obvious happiness high from the performance.

The twins promptly pulled out their game console as soon as the final customer left and they were playing on that. It puzzled Michelle to see that only Hikaru pulled out a game console and Kaoru simply sat next to him, pointing out where to go next and warning his twin of any upcoming dangers. '_You'd think that since they're wealthy enough, they'd have two game systems to play on. I mean, it's really awkward that only one of them is playing'_ the female host thought as she was vacuuming around the sofa the twins were on.

Being the recluse he was, the shadow king of the host club was merely typing away on his pineapple laptop. As usual, no one really knew what he was evilly grinning about when he was typing at the time, but they were all about to find out.

'_Whew, I just want to get home, take a quick shower, and collapse on my bed'_ Michelle thought as she pulled her now messy hair into a ponytail and away from her neck and shoulders which were beginning to perspire.

'_I wonder how long Kyouya's going to talk. Knowing him, it shouldn't take that long; as long as he doesn't ask Tamaki how he thought the evening went. At that point I might actually fall asleep right here'_ she continued, looking around to visually figure out where would be the most comfortable place for sleeping on the couch if it came to that. Seeing that the crook of the sofa would work in a pinch, she turned her attention back to the tall dark haired boy who stood in front of her.

"The audience truly enjoyed the evening and Tamaki and Michelle performed quite wonderfully" Kyouya said as he nodded at them in acknowledgement. Michelle lazily smiled at his compliment while Tamaki excitedly jumped up at the grey eyed boy's head nod, taking it as it was his turn to speak.

"I'd like to thank Mic-"

he grandly started to say before Kyouya curtly cut him off.

"This is not a Grammy award Tamaki, please take your seat again and wait for me to finish."

Pouting slightly, the energetic blonde plopped back into his seat and listened to his best friend continue with his summary of the evening.

"We have enough interest to make this event a regular host club specialty" Kyouya said as he glanced quickly over his notebook. "We have the next seven performances booked solid and I'm sure that Tamaki and Michelle are prepared for that".

'_What? He wasn't kidding earlier?_ Michelle thought as her eyes slightly widened at Kyouya's comment.

'_There's no way that's true. Even if it is… Well… I guess it's good practice for later on in life'_ she thought as her mind wandered to her dream of becoming a music minister one day.

"Even though overall the show was a success, there was a mishap that almost destroyed the entire evening." the raven haired boy continued as he repositioned his glasses. "Luckily a prolonged moment of awkwardness was avoided, but the matter still remains that a very valuable vase was broken during the incident. That being said-,"

Kyouya said as he turned very nonchalantly towards the female in the group, "Michelle you now owe the club eight million yen."

Snapping Michelle back to reality from her day dreaming of her future job, the girl almost choked on her saliva at that comment. Her blue eyes widened as much as they could and her jaw dropped as low as it could go.

Tamaki was also completely surprised at this comment and stared at his best friend in disbelief.

"Wa.., wai.., wait, w..w..wait" Michelle sputtered out. She paused for a second to clear her throat and started again. "I mean it's awful that a vase was broken during the tumble Tamaki and I took when we fell to the ground, but-" she added brimming with annoyance and disbelief "HOW THE HECK IS THAT MY FAULT?" she raised her arms in question as she yelled at her smirking antagonizer, who was now looking at his notebook.

Upon hearing the normally sedated host yell, almost all eyes turned to her in shock.

However, not even looking up to acknowledge her question, Kyouya responded "It was your fault that the tiara went flying in the first place."

Before the sympathetic violet eyed boy could speak out and say that he was the reason she fell and therefore it was his fault that the tiara went flying, Kyouya continued, addressing only Michelle,

"Tamaki's falling over and pulling you down would not have been a problem, but since you didn't allow the twins to properly attach the tiara to your head, it flew away from you. You should be grateful that Hunny-Senpai caught the item or else your debt would be well over twenty two million yen" he said as he finally tilted his head in her direction, but in a way that a white and intimidating glare shielded his eyes.

Shocked speechless, Michelle could only place her hand in front of her mouth in disbelief. She wanted to chew him out more for his faulty reasoning, she wanted to turn and appeal to Tamaki, heck she even wanted strangle Kyouya on the spot then and there, but for some reason the girl was too shocked to say or do anything at all.

The other hosts just sat there in the uncomfortable silence and felt bad for the blue eyed girl. They knew better than to disagree with Kyouya, but none of them felt like he was being fair to her.

Hunny felt the worst of all_._

'_If I could've caught the tiara without knocking over the vase, Mi-Chan wouldn't be in this mess'_ the dejected senior thought as he squeezed Usa-Chan tight.

"I-I-I don't have that much money" Michelle finally stuttered out, trying her best to gain a sliver of her composure back, even if she for some strange reason couldn't drop her polite charade enough to fully lash out at him. If anyone from her old life saw her at a loss for words like this and saw that she wasn't verbally and/or physically lashing out at her antagonizer, as she would have if someone tried to pull this crap on her back home, no one would know who she was.

'_What's wrong with me?_' she questioned herself as she tried to get fully past her shock and to a place where she could attack her pompous opponent. _'I mean I know I left all of my sarcasm and anger when I left America because I didn't want any part of my past life to be attributed to who I am now, but damn it! I need that fighting edge back to take down this bastard.'_

Not knowing the inner battle going on in the blue eyed girl's mind and hoping to get her to admit the truth, Kyouya edged her on by saying "Well, then maybe your aunt and uncle can help out".

"They don't have that much money, they barely could cover the tuition" she sputtered out, unable to come up with a better lie. Apparently she's been so stuck on 'interaction mode' as she put it, that even her ability to lie her way out of anything has been currently stunned as well.

"Well then", Kyouya said frustrated that Michelle's wall of secrets was more impenetrable than he thought it would be. "Since you already are an official member, you can continue participating in the club on a worker's basis on top of your normal hosting duties. By that I mean that you will do the set-up, clean-up, and anything else that we deem you need to do." he finished as he looked back into his notebook and wrote something down in it.

Knowing that there was nothing she could say or do to get out of this mess, but still refusing to give up since her stubbornness was slowly creeping back in, Michelle said obviously annoyed, "But I already help out with the set-up and clean-up, and –"

"Then you'll continue your duties and find yourself being called upon for more responsibilities" Kyouya said as he glared at her to let her know that the discussion was finished.

"Tamaki" he then said nodding to the saddened violet eyed boy and before Michelle could continue bantering with him, "Would you like to add anything about the performance?"

Knowing that Tamaki would lighten the mood and efficiently shut the girl up for now, Kyouya let his energetic friend stand in front of the group while the be-speckled boy just silently slid over to his desk and laptop.

'_Hrumph, and I thought that he would be a joy to figure out. The only thing I want to do with him now is strangle him'_ the strawberry blonde thought as she mentally shot daggers out of her eyes towards the calm and collected dark haired boy who was fully immersed in his work. She was completely ignoring the bubbly blonde who was babbling something about adding lights and getting props for the next show and she just continued to scowl at his best friend.

'_What the heck gives him the right to charge me for that? I mean, did he want Tamaki and me to be further delayed for the curtain call? And what the hell does he think he will gain by making me in his debt? I mean, does he need to own everyone?'_

"MICHELLE-SAN!"

Tamaki exclaimed as she looked up to find the boy's beautiful purple eyes literally inches away from her face. Jolting slightly at his closeness and snapping her out of her evil thoughts of Kyouya, the girl questioned

"Yes?"

"We are all going to something called a zoo tomorrow. It's apparently a place that common people go to in order to see animals that they are too poor to own. Would you like to come with us?" he said with a huge grin and anxiously awaiting her answer.

Remembering that she had to help Fr. Kichi with a baptism tomorrow morning along with the regular Saturday afternoon Mass, and not to mention the pile of homework that she had to tackle for the weekend, Michelle was getting ready to decline the prince's invitation.

"She'll be there" Kyouya coolly said as he looked up at his best friend and before Michelle could formulate any words, "We need someone to carry the souvenirs that will be purchased". The cool tempered boy fixed his glasses and smirked at the girl's reaction to his response as he turned back to his work to continue to type away.

'_HOW DARE HE ANSWER FOR ME!'_

Michelle thought as she managed to only slightly keep her outward cool. Her hands were turning white from being formed into two tight fists, but she calmed herself before she spoke up, not wanting to yell at the raven haired boy again. Michelle cleared her throat and turned to face Tamaki, who was completely ecstatic to hear that she was going with the hosts on their field trip.

"I'm sorry, but contrary to what Kyouya said, I can't make it tomorrow. I have other plans and I-" she said dripping with annoyance before she was cut off by the shadow king.

"Surely you can get out of them. Unless you have already figured out another way to pay the club back for the vase, of course" Kyouya said disinterestedly.

Knowing there was absolutely nothing else to do, Michelle stared into the grinning face of Tamaki and forced out

"Sure, I'd love to go with you guys tomorrow, what time do you want to meet up?" through her clenched teeth.

Getting the information she needed for the next day's excursion and wanting to get out of there before Kyouya found something else to force her into, Michelle asked if she could be excused.

"I promised my aunt that I'd help her bake her famous banana nut muffins tonight for our church's bake sale tomorrow" she lied, praying that they would buy her explanation and let her go.

"Ok, Michelle-senpai, see ya tomorrow" the twins happily said in unison, without ever removing their gaze from the game console.

"Have fun baking" Hunny said as he grinned happily at the thought of baked goods.

Mori simply said, "good night" as he watched the strawberry blonde reach for her book bag.

"See you bright and early Michelle, and why don't you bring some of the muffins with you tomorrow" Kyouya said as she walked to the door.

'_Of course he'd say something like that. Why is he trying to make me so uncomfortable'_ Michelle thought before she strainingly said, "Will do" while refusing to make eye contact with her protagonist.

Her hand was finally on the door knob and she prayed yet again that no one would stop her this time. Finally making it out of the room, Michelle muttered, "at least Father keeps a batch of fresh made muffins on the kitchen table at all times. I hope that he lets me take a few of them and that he understands why I can't help him with the set up tomorrow, like I promised I would."

Her final thought lingered on Kyouya as she stalked down the now familiar halls of Ouran, _'I wonder what else that evil person has in plan for me?_'

Hey All! I'm back again! Yay the school year is almost over for me! That means more time to write (hopefully) :D

First of all I **really** want to thank Of Kings and Queens for her review! I completely agree with her comment about there being too many 'Mary-Sues' in the fanfic world and as I assured her, Michelle most certainly is not a 'Mary-Sue'. She just had a slow beginning because she's testing the waters with her new friends and, as I mentioned in this chapter, she for some stupid reason thinks that acting like herself is going to give her identity away. As you saw in this chapter, her personality walls are beginning to slowly break-down now, so she'll get real fun soon.

Anyway, I hope that you guys like this chapter, it was a lot of fun to write! The next few chaps will be on the Zoo trip, so stay tuned!

Thank you once again for all the comments, 'story fav', and 'story alert' notifications and I'll see ya soon! :)


	12. Facades Chapter 12

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own the rights to Disney or Apple Inc.

**Chapter Twelve: Façades**

Rushing so she wouldn't be late, the strawberry blonde host was running around her small room early on Saturday morning.

'_Thank goodness I don't have to put on that girly dress this morning'_

Michelle thought as she threw on a tried and true Lion King on Broadway t-shirt and a pair of comfy Alice in Wonderland jeans along with a floppy pair of pirate themed ballet flats and matching stud earrings.

It's not that she didn't like to wear dresses when she needed to, like for a professional reason or for church, but Michelle is not the type who likes to flaunt that she's a girl. Acting feminine at all was a sign of weakness to her as well.

Sure, when she was younger, she loved dressing up and entering pageants and the like, but somewhere during the beginning of middle school she found herself hating the way she was viewed and treated. Getting so sick of people viewing her as a dumb blonde or some sort of porcelain doll that would break if you looked at it too harshly, one night she finally decided to do something about it and made a complete one-eighty in her attitude, her wardrobe, her everything.

Because of her 'new' manner of thought, she had a very strong tomboy streak that would show itself whenever she wasn't in 'interaction' mode. A good example of her tomboyish appearance always arose when the blue eyed girl went to hang out with her best friend. Her best friend, a beautiful, lean, auburn haired girl who is slightly taller than Michelle, tends to wear more feminine clothes while Michelle is most comfortable in a pair of men's cargo shorts and a guy's baggy t-shirt. Even though she and her best friend are as straight as arrows, the two girls would always joke about the strawberry blonde's 'butch-ish' tendencies and would overly act like a couple when they didn't want to be bothered by the guys who tried to pick them up.

There was one downside to her sudden transformation from a 'girly girl' to more of a 'butch girl', now the female host was so tomboyish at times that she actually got into the mindset of a guy with the little things from time to time. For instance, if she was holding a door open, she'd have to fight back the urge to say "ladies first", or when she was playing with the guys in her neighborhood, she'd roughly and physically horse around with them as if she was one of them. There were many times that she could be seen wrestling with the neighborhood guys or playing flag football or some other kind of high contact sport. It's true, she would always be the first one to climb the nearby tall tree or hook onto her zip line or pull out her paintball riffle. Lord knows that she has a strong competitive streak and whenever some guy said that he was stronger or faster than her, she immediately set out to prove them wrong; and she always did.

However, scholastic competition was another thing entirely because she always took that to another level of intensity. This quirk not only showed itself through the strawberry blonde's almost obsessive desire for perfect grades, but also through her attitude in scholastic competitions. One time when her classmates were playing a version of Jeopardy on a field trip to a Civil War historical site, she almost clawed the other person who was going for the buzzer to ring in their answer. That motion wasn't intentionally done, but it almost worked out that the girl drew blood from her opponent.

All of this happened because Michelle felt like she had to prove that she wasn't bound by any physical or mental restrictions. She definitely wasn't a weak girl and she most certainly wasn't a dumb blonde, that's why she always wanted to keep people from thinking that about her.

Now, she is far from perfect and is well aware of that that, but she never wants the people around her to see her imperfections and never wants to be viewed as she used to be. Her best friend always tried to shake her of that bad habit and would always tell the tomboyish girl to let her be herself and not try so hard, but without her best friend's constant reminders, Michelle was pushing herself to look down on her imperfections even harsher than she did in America.

She was definitely a strong person back home, but she shoved the physical streak and the snide sarcastic side of her personality aside when she got on the plane for Japan. There are many reasons she did this, but the main reason lay in the fact that she was petrified if she acted too much like herself, someone would figure out who she was and her friends back home would be in danger.

She could never live with herself if that happened.

However, and without her knowledge, every day that she got more and more comfortable around the host club, meaning that her set barrier was slowly breaking down and she was transforming back into the strong personality that she invented for herself in middle school.

She quickly pulled her long strawberry-blonde hair into a high ponytail and grabbed her iPod and wallet as she headed for the door of her room. Running down the stairs so fast she almost flew down them, Michelle made it to the kitchen in no time at all.

"Have fun with your friends today" a sweet and elderly sounding voice spoke to the girl host as she was rushing through the simple kitchen of the rectory.

"Thank you Fr. Kichi, and I apologize once again that I will not be able to help out like I promised" the girl said as she stopped in her tracks to face the priest she was talking to.

"That's quite alright my dear, I've taken care of the set-up for many years and I have no problem doing it again" Fr. said with a smile while he was gesturing at the muffins she had told him the night before she needed for the morning. They were in a wicker basket and perfectly arranged with a blue checkered fabric going underneath the muffins and wrapping around to drape over the pastries so they would stay warm for a while. It looked so quaint that Michelle's mind instantly thought of some sort of 50's housewife spending the morning baking and arranging it all to make it look "just right".

After inwardly shuddering at a thought of such a weak stereotypical female, the girl said, "Oh Father, you didn't need to go the trouble of gathering the muffins for me. I just told you about it so you wouldn't be surprised that so many of them disappeared this morning." She said this with a modest and apologetic smile that the priest not only didn't get upset that she was abandoning her work, but that he even prepared the muffins for her that morning.

"It was no trouble at all, now go, have fun with your friends" he said with an enthusiastic smile, inwardly thinking about how happy and proud he was that his house guest was already making friends.

Looking at her guardian, thanking God again that she was blessed with such an understanding caretaker, Michelle smiled widely, completely hiding the fact that her upcoming statement was a lie, "Thank you Fr. I'm looking forward to spending some more time with them, especially at the zoo. I've never been to a zoo in another country before" she said while grabbing the basket that the muffins were in and slinging her grey Disneyland Paris messenger bag on her right shoulder.

"I'll see you later" she called back to him while she used her right hip to push open the door out of the building.

Being out of sight of the priest, Michelle dropped her happy attitude and scowled, muttering,

"it's a Saturday. Why the hell did those idiots want to meet at seven in the morning? Damn rich people" she grumbled as she rushed down the street to the place that they were all supposed to meet that morning_._

'_I'm glad Kyouya suggested that we meet at the tea store down the street. It's right along the way I walk to school every morning and since it's so close I could sleep in a little bit more this morning'_ she thought as she saw that she was approaching the sign for Hakanu's Tea Retreat.

'_I wonder if they are here ye-'_ Michelle started to think before the screeching wheels of a white limo stopping caused her to halt in her tracks.

"MICHELLE-SAN!" came an excited screech.

'_Great, polite time again'_ the blue eyed girl thought as she realized that she needed to be back on her best behavior. Plastering on her false and dazzling smile, Michelle said

"Tamaki! Good morning! It's great to see you".

"Are these for us?" came the sound of two identical voices, one in each of her ears. Getting used to them sneaking up on her and invading her personal bubble, Michelle didn't even flinch at two red heads' appearance.

"Of course Hikaru and Kaoru. I told my aunt that you were all interested in trying her muffins, so she insisted on me bringing a basket of them for our outing" she said with a smile as she raised them for the boys to take a muffin from the basket.

Annoyed that the strawberry blonde didn't jump at their arrival, the twins decided to kick it up a notch in order to get a reaction from the cool mannered girl that they were leaning on.

"We'll try the muffins-" Hikaru started with a mischievous gleam in his eye as he leaned closer to her face.

"If you'll feed them to us" Kaoru finished leaning in as well and looking seductively at the girl that they finally managed to slightly stun.

Giving them a slight look of disgust, Michelle said, trying to hide her complete annoyance, "you guys know that you can leave that flirting act of yours at the school, right?"

"Who said it's an act?" Kaoru said grinning coyly as he moved even closer to the blue eyed girl's face.

"Oh get real Kaoru, I know that you and your brother get your kicks from flirting with girls until they react the way you want them to" Michelle said as her annoyance seeped through and her polite façade faded as she turned to face his brother who was equally close to her face on his side to state "There's no need to toy with me, so please get off of me".

Stunned that she was not her cheerful chipper self, that she already knew their ploys, and that she could tell them apart already, the twins stood straight and stared at each other in disbelief.

"Well, are we going to loiter here all day or are we going to go to the commoner's zoo?" a cool and disinterested voice spoke from in front of the trio.

They looked up to see the grey eyed second year student sitting at an outside table with a newspaper in front of him. Placing the newspaper down after folding it, Kyouya placed his hands in front of him and looked up, expecting an answer.

"Yeah! Takashi and I are ready to go see the pandas!" an excited Hunny chirped as he appeared from behind Kyouya, perched on his cousin's shoulders "They're his favorite".

"Hmm" the tall senior grunted in agreement with Hunny's comment.

Before Michelle could fully recall if she'd ever actually heard the tall boy speak, her attention was turned to the bell attached to the entrance of the shop which suddenly rang furiously.

"Let's go then!" Tamaki said bubbling with excitement as well as he emerged from the tea shop with a tall and steaming cup.

"Agreed milord" the twins said as they finally stepped away from Michelle and gave a little salute to their boss.

"We'll take my vehicle since it was recently re-upholstered and it's the largest of the four that are present" Kyouya said as he pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

With that, all of the host's shuffled into their shadow king's black limo and were on their way to the Tokyo zoo. After each of them grabbed a muffin from Michelle's basket, with the exception of Kyouya and Michelle, and the munching hosts started to talk amongst themselves about the wonderful things that they were planning on seeing once they got to their destination.

Hikaru and Kaoru planned ahead and printed out a map of the zoo so they could fully plan the route that they wanted to go before they got there.

Tamaki was looking over their shoulders in order to make sure that they included all of the animals and exhibits that he wanted to see, chiming in every once and a while when they skipped a place that he wanted to see.

Hunny was chatting away to Mori about the pandas and somehow ended up talking about sweets again.

'_Wow, it's like his life revolves around sweet things'_ Michelle thought to herself as she overheard Hunny babbling to his cousin from her position on the other side of the dark, cool limo.

"I couldn't help but notice, but by the way you dealt with them this morning you seem to be getting more comfortable around the twins" a smooth voice stated as it broke through her thoughts.

Shocked that Kyouya was speaking to her, Michelle looked at the dark haired boy who was sitting next to her and currently writing in his black notebook.

"What do you mean Kyouya-San?" the girl said in a manner that was somehow both coy and chipper.

"You didn't maintain your pretend façade of sweetness when they bothering you" he said in his monotone voice and still looking down at his notebook. Since the light was hitting his glasses in such a way that all she saw was a glare, Michelle was unable to see his eyes and couldn't figure out what Kyouya was really thinking.

"Are you trying to imply that I'm not always friendly and sweet?" Michelle asked with a false look of shock and hurt.

'_Damn, I'm letting myself slip up too much' _she managed to think to herself before Kyouya responded to her.

Putting down his notebook and fixing his glasses so he could still maintain his glare when he looked up at the inquisitive girl that sat next to him, Kyouya responded, letting his annoyance at her secretive actions slightly come through,

"Surely you don't question my intelligence and think that I can't see that you put on a certain act of sweetness around others so they will not be able to see who you are. It's almost as if you are hiding something."

Smirking inwardly at his correct interpretation of her actions, but refusing to let it show, Michelle continued her coy act and said

"I am genuinely sweet when I chose to be, which at least is more than I can say about you. I've seen the way you act around customers versus the way you act around the people that serve no purpose to you. If you think that I act like I'm hiding something, it must be because you believe that everyone acts as you do."

Not responding to her comment, Kyouya just looked down and continued to work in his notebook.

'_Hmm, she is more clever than I thought she would be'_ he thought as he found the corners of his lips twitch upwards to form a smile before he stifled it.

'_That worked. Man it feels good to be snide from time to time again! Wait, was that almost a smile on his face?' _the girl thought as she saw the twitching of Kyouya's lips before he returned to his regular emotionless stare. '_He is becoming quite an enjoyable challenge to figure out again. But I must keep in mind that if he wants to toy with me, I need to show him I can do the same'_

'_Hmm'_ she thought as she switched subjects,_ 'so I have to be more careful around Kyouya. I don't want him to find out that I really am hiding my past from everyone. That could put my friends back home in danger.' _The strawberry-blonde thought as she drowned out the babble around her and stared out the window thinking about her life in America again as she sat back and enjoyed the ride to the zoo.

Hey all! Sorry about the delay in releasing this chapter, but summer vacation started early for me and I didn't have any internet connection where we went.

So as you can tell, Michelle's slowly getting bolder, toldja this was coming. I hope you like it as much as I like writing her like this. I am sorry though that I spent so much time just getting her background down more. The next chapter will be focused more on the present then on stuff like this.

As always, a special thank you to all who have signed up for story alerts and fav story/author :) See Ya Soon!


	13. Zoo Trip Chapter 13

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own the rights to Apple Inc.

**Chapter Thirteen: Zoo Trip**

'_Where the hell do these crazy people find the energy to act the way they are?'_ Michelle thought to herself as she was literally running to keep up with the twins who each had a hold on her arms as they were rushing to see the next exhibit. _'Forget about trying to figure out how the pyramids were built, the world's experts need to solve the mystery of where these boys get their energy from'_.

"C'mon Michelle-Sempai, we want to see the elephants next to see if they are bigger than Hunny-Sempai's or not" the twins excitedly chattered in her ear, noticing that the girl they were dragging was beginning to lag behind.

"Guys, why don't we see the animals as we pass by them instead of zooming from one end of the zoo to the other?" the exhausted girl barely was able to say, due to lack of oxygen.

"Because" Tamaki said as if it were the most obvious answer in the world as he turned around to face her, all while never losing his current speed, even though the violet eyed boy was now running backwards, "We wouldn't be able to see them in the proper order then".

"Of course" she muttered with an eye roll as the tall blonde turned around again so he could see where he was running, almost plowing right into a water fountain in the process.

"Can't we take a little break before we get to the elephants though?" Michelle panted in desperation.

"Perhaps she has the right idea" Kyouya said in agreement, off to the trio's left.

'_Wait, he's agreeing with me? Well, I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth'_ Michelle thought as she stared at the grey eyed boy who seemed to be able to keep up with the other hosts without even needing to run.

"We are approaching the gift shop, so now would be a good chance to take a break. Since it's on the agenda for the day, it wouldn't waste any of the allotted time that we have here" Kyouya stated, sounding completely uninterested either way.

"SHOPPING!"

the twins shouted as they rushed off to the nearby store in search of souvenirs for the day's commoner excursion. Tamaki and Hunny were in fast pursuit of the twins, while Mori just continued to quietly walk along behind his overly excited friends.

Almost falling to the ground when the twins let go of her so rapidly, Michelle stumbled over to a nearby bench before she plopped down to catch her breath.

"Again, where the hell do they get their energy from" she muttered under her breath after she felt like she could breathe normally again and started to fix her now mussed up ponytail.

"When they get excited about something, they can go on forever" a familiar cool voice replied from her right.

"How do you manage to keep up with them Kyouya-San?" Michelle responded without even turning to face the teenager who also was not looking at her.

"Being the heir of a medical industry, all Ootoris are in excellent physical shape" he said in a monotone voice while writing in his notebook, as usual.

"Ah, of course" Michelle said sarcastically. "By the way, thank you for agreeing with me and getting the others to take a break" she said, acknowledging her companion's unexpected kindness.

"It only made sense to take a break before you got too exhausted. The whole reason you came along was to carry the items that they buy and if you become too drained, you might drop and damage them. I'd hate to add any more to your debt" Kyouya said as he fixed his glasses, still avoiding looking at the girl sitting next to him.

Knowing full well that he would never hate to make someone more indebted to him, Michelle knew that Kyouya's explanation was a false one.

'_Why does he try so hard to act like he doesn't care about others when he really does? I mean, he coerced me into coming because his best friend wanted me here. Why doesn't he just say 'you're welcome'?'_ the girl thought as she ignored the raven haired boy's comment and proceeded to put her iPod's earbuds in.

"KYOUYA! You have to look at this!" they soon both heard as Tamaki excitedly shrieked over to the two hosts who were situated on the bench. He had poked his head out of the door and was frantically waving at his calm friend to join him inside the large gift shop.

"Excuse me" Kyouya said with a small, semi-mocking bow towards Michelle as he tucked his notebook under his right arm before he walked over to the blonde haired boy that had beckoned him.

After some long awaited peaceful silence, Michelle thought that she had just closed her eyes for a second while she was getting immersed in the sounds of her old church, but the girl was soon jolted awake when she felt several heavy objects being roughly plopped onto her lap.

"Here ya go"

the twins said in unison and with a slight hint of superiority in their voices as they gave their current 'servant' their recently bought goodies. Snapping out of her happy and relaxing place, Michelle quickly reached out to grab the plastic bags before they slipped off her lap. As soon as she grabbed them, Tamaki swiftly bolted over and snatched the bags from her.

"A gentleman doesn't allow a lady to carry such heavy objects" he said scolding the twins. "You two should know better" he said as he struggled to hold on to all of their items along with his.

"But, that's what she's here today" the two said as they looked up at him in a way that made them look like spoiled brats who honestly couldn't care less.

Ignoring their current rudeness, acknowledging that she really was only there for that reason, and happy to actually get an excuse to have some more quiet time away from the host club, Michelle then interceded in the trio's argument as she stood.

"They've got a point Tamaki. I am here to take your stuff back to the limo and I really don't mind."

Realizing that the tall blonde was probably going to protest again, Kyouya spoke up this time.

"She's stronger than she looks and surely you remember that the only reason we didn't add the price of her admission to her debt was because she was willing to do this little errand" he said as he handed the girl his own souvenir bag.

Since that was all he needed to hear, Tamaki then dumped all of the bags, that he somehow managed not to drop during his awkward hold on them, into Michelle's arms as roughly as the twins did a little while ago. Slightly caught off guard at how quickly they were thrust upon her, it looked like the bags were about to weigh her down for a second, but the female host instantly repositioned herself to carry it all better. Getting her arms through the plastic handles and taking Mori and Hunny's bags as well, the blue eyed girl started to walk to the entrance of the zoo.

"I've just called Tachibana and he will meet you at the front entrance; exactly where he dropped us off when we got here." A cool and disinterested voice called to the girl who was shuffling away with all the bags in tow.

"I figured he'd meet me there. I'll see you guys later" she said not turning back to face Kyouya.

"Don't forget to meet us at the giraffes and don't dilly-dally too much. It's rude." The grey-eyed boy said to her as he pushed his glasses up his nose again and turned to follow the group that had already left for the elephants.

'_Psh, whatever.' _Michelle thought as she walked to the where the gate was. _'At least when I'm by myself I can set my own pace and not be forced to keep up with those speed demons.'_

Meandering at a slowish pace and humming along with her music, the strawberry-blonde was in her own little world as she carried the bags to the limo.

She was so lost in her own little happy world, Michelle didn't notice the two, tall and shady looking boys who were now following her into the secluded area she was using as a shortcut to the entrance.

Hey guys! First of all I realized that I failed to acknowledge Acir Tools' wonderful comment in my last release, so I apologize to my biggest fan! Well, this chapter is a little shorter, but it's a filler/segway for the next one. It's going to be a really long chapter with my own twist on "The sea, the sun, and the host club", so I'm really hoping you guys like it! And as always, a heart-filled thank you all who have signed up for story alerts and so on :)

See Ya Soon!


	14. Danger! Chapter 14

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own any of the songs or TV shows mentioned.

**Chapter Fourteen: Danger!**

"Oh God You are my God, and I will ever praise you" quietly sang the happy girl who was slightly weighed down by approximately twenty souvenir bags as she was walking towards her destination. Feeling safe and like nothing could go wrong, Michelle had let her guard down as she carried out her errand.

It's definitely not something that she would have done back home since she knew how to be street smart not only from her interactions with the neighborhood guys, who had learnt a long time ago that the only way to get an advantage over the strawberry blonde was through a surprise attack, but also thanks to her parent's involvement in the government. It always boggled her why her parents knew so much about gang ploys and the like when they were teaching her how to take care of herself, especially since they were both merely top scientists for the government and not actual agents, but she learnt not to dwell on that when they had their little 'safety' discussions. Also, her favorite TV shows, such as Criminal Minds, Law and Order SVU, and other shows that deal with the most depraved criminals on the screen, made her naturally super aware of her surroundings. However, there was something about the fact that she was at a family friendly place and the familiar music that she was listening to, that made her just space out.

That was a mistake.

"She's cute" a rough voice said from behind a short brick wall, completely hidden by the shadows of the nearby building.

"Yeah 'n since her hands are filled with a bunch o' crap 'n she's not aware of nothing around her, she's a perfect target" a lecherous voice replied from the shadows near the other guy.

"And look, no one's in th' area" he continued to his buddy as he motioned to the empty area of the zoo that they were in.

Smiling at each other at the thought of what they were about to do, the two unshaven guys in their early twenties, wearing baggy clothes, and a good six inches taller than their target, walked over to Michelle. Being so lost in her music, the strawberry-blonde didn't notice them walking up to her and flanking her on both sides, leaving her no room to get away.

"Hey there pretty lady, you look like you bought a lot of stuff" the brunette guy on her right said to her, dripping with evil intent.

From the location that guy's voice was coming from, Michelle could tell that he was directly behind her right shoulder and he was either only slightly taller than her, or he was leaning down to talk to her. She looked back to casually evaluate the situation and was surprised at how close the stranger was to her. The female host slightly jolted as she quickly looked at him, then stared straight ahead, gradually increasing her speed and scanning the area from right to left, calculating the best area to run to if worse came to worse. Unfortunately, in the part of the zoo she was in due to her shortcut, there were no places to seek cover because the buildings were all either closed or sealed from this angle.

"Maybe so" she said trying to avoid eye contact and hoping that the guy would get the idea that she wasn't willing to be sociable while inwardly praying that she was overreacting for no reason.

"Maybe we c'n help ya wit' your stuff 'n out uf those clothes?" the other one seethed into her left ear.

Realizing that there was another person walking alongside of her and being completely conscious that she really was in the bad situation she was dreading, Michelle started to walk even faster as she fought back the urge to act as frightened as she was on the inside. Finally catching on that their prey was trying to get away, the guy on her right grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her to a stop, and said,

"I believe my friend asked you a question".

"Yeah I did" the purple haired boy said as he bent down to face the girl that his friend had captured face-to-face, "'N it's rude not ta answer a question".

Being unable to move thanks to the brunette's tight grip on her arm, Michelle quickly looked side to side yet again, hoping that someone had started to walk down the section of the zoo they were in so she could yell out for help. Seeing that there was still no one anywhere in sight, the blue eyed girl inwardly started to worry even more.

"I said, maybe we c'n help ya wi'chur bags 'n then you could help us out" the boy in front of her said agitatedly as he slowly started to trace his coarse fingers across her face, starting from her cheek and moving down to her chin. When he reached her chin, he roughly grabbed it and forced her to look him in the face, "are ya deaf or some'n?" he barked, angry that the serene-faced girl hadn't responded to him either time.

'_In every movie and TV show, the survivors of these sort of things caught their attacker off guard by some random reaction'_ Michelle thought as she refused to show any trace of fear in her sapphire eyes as she stared into the dark and cold brown eyes of her attacker as she rushed to calculate an exit strategy that would save her. Remembering a self-defense video that she had seen years ago, Michelle quickly dropped her bags, stomped the full force of her foot onto the in-step of the brunette's foot, and with a strong right cross, punched the other one square in the jaw. Being shocked that she reacted so quickly and by the surprising amount of pain that was radiating from where she hit them, both thugs released her and reached for the area that was in throbbing in pain.

'_God, please help me run fast enough so I can get away from them and to safety' _the girl prayed to herself as she ran as fast as her feet could carry her towards the busy area of the zoo that she left her friends in earlier and away from the two guys were now shouting many different obscenities at the strength of the girl that was in their clutches mere moments ago.

Unfortunately, the purple-haired boy quickly shook off the pain from his jaw and saw that the girl was trying to escape from them. In an instant he started to sprint for her and was able to quickly catch up to her due to his longer legs and due to the fact that she didn't injure him in an area that limited his mobility, like his friend. He roughly grabbed both of her arms and pinned her to a nearby wall. After hearing the thud that came from his shoving the smaller girl against the hard concrete and the uncontrolled grunt of pain that she emitted, the pissed off guy turned Michelle around to face him. Ignoring the pain that surged through her body at that moment, the girl stared at the blood that was coming from her attacker's mouth, due to her punch, and knew from his grip on her arms that it would be a real struggle if she ever hoped to free herself. Not wasting any time this time around, she started squirming as much as she could and tried to balance herself on one leg so she could use the free one to kick the rapist as hard as she could. Unfortunately, every time she got into a good position to kick him, her attacker shoved her in such a way that caused her to put her weight on the leg she was freeing. After several moments of that, her attacker somehow managed to place his legs in-between hers, pinning her in a partial spread eagle position, and he started to focus on her squirming arms. Shocked that she was unable to break away from her attacker at all, especially due to her strength and all of her wrestling experience back in America, Michelle attempted to bite one of his hands in hopes that it would give her a second to free one of hers enough to punch him again. However, he saw her reaching down to bite his arm and rapidly shoved the girl into the wall again. This time the back of her head was thrust into the wall with such force that her head started throbbing and her eyes were beginning to see double. The world was getting blurry for her, but she refused to yelp in pain this time. The pain was almost unbearable for the girl, even though she was well used to injuries and had many "battle scars" as she used to call all of her broken bones. Using that moment of stunned pain, her attacker brought both of her arms up and put them into a single-handed vice grip, somehow managing to secure her in one of his hands even though the two of them were sweating from all of the struggling. Finally being in a position that rendered his captive motionless, the purple-haired boy panted from their struggle through an evil grin of victory as he slowly reached down to the bottom of the girl's shirt hem in order to raise it up.

Things did not look good.

The girl's mind was spinning from the pain that was fully radiating from her head, but also it was spinning as she tried to get past the fuzziness in order to calculate an escape strategy,

somehow.

Before she could even pray for help, the strawberry-blonde heard something strange from her right. She could have sworn that she heard the words "bunny-kick" before the guy in front of her mysteriously disappeared, but that made no sense; she just chalked that phrase up to the mild concussion she obviously got from that last impact.

Dropping to her knees when the purple-haired boy who held her up disappeared, Michelle tried to catch her breath before looking up at what was happening. She soon saw a rather large shadow in front of her and panicked, thinking it was one of her assailants again. The girl host woozily shot up and clutched the wall behind her, without turning away from the out of focus silhouette, all while keeping a determined face that refused to show the amount of pain she was in.

The sight she saw was the most welcomed one that she could have prayed for.

Instead of facing one of the thugs that attacked her, Michelle found herself staring at the gigantic profile of Mori. Upon seeing that she was finally safe, the girl slumped back down in order to fully catch her breath. She reached up to wipe away some of the sweat that was now slipping into her eyes and quickly thanked God to herself.

In what felt like a millisecond later, the girl looked up again to see a blurred version of Tamaki rushing over to her. She couldn't see much besides Mori and Tamaki from where she was, due to her now faulty eyesight, but while the two closest hosts were focusing on her, Hunny was off to the left trying to catch the purple-haired thug and the twins were back in the area where Michelle initially was targeted, trying to catch the brunette. Kyouya was merely casually strolling over to the deserted area of the zoo while dialing the zoo's security office.

"Are you ok?"

Tamaki asked in a worried and completely serious voice as he knelt down to put both of his hands on the shoulders of the girl who was sitting on the pavement and leaning against the wall to keep herself upright. It took her a second to respond since it was the first time that Michelle had ever heard the normally flighty blonde sound so serious and it was completely embarrassing to her that his current tone was due to the situation that she was in.

"Yeah, I'm fine"

the blue eyed girl lied as she stared into Tamaki's violet eyes, refusing to show that she was in any pain at all, even though it was hard to get her vision to focus.

"Thanks to you guys" she quickly added.

Mori turned around at that comment, gave a half smile, and nodded as he accepted the gratitude of the disheveled girl. Before Tamaki could ask her anything else, Hunny shuffled over to the trio. He was worried about the girl, but he also had saddened look of disappointment on his little face.

"I couldn't catch him Mi-chan. I'm sorry" the little boy said as he sat next to the girl and across from Tamaki. He leaned against the girl host, causing her to inwardly flinch as he gently placed his tiny hand on an area of her arm that her attacker had grabbed moments before.

"Yeah, neither could we" two voices chimed in from the opposite direction that Hunny came from as they approached the other hosts.

"He was limping pretty badly, but we couldn't grab him" Hikaru and Kaoru said with a look of all-encompassing anger at the person they were trying to catch and at the fact that he slipped away from them.

When they reached their friends, Hikaru stood next to Mori and crossed his arms in front of him in a pouting position. Kaoru just gently kneeled down next to his tono and slowly and delicately reached out to push away a strand of hair that had fallen in front of Michelle's face.

"Are you Ok Mic-" was all Kaoru could say before Tamaki screeched, causing the redhead to swiftly recoil and all of the hosts to jump.

"OHMYGOODNESS! YOU'RE BLEEDING"

he screamed as everyone immediately turned to look at the spot he was pointing at.

Michelle was in pain from where the thugs grabbed her, the places on her arms that her attacker seized her as he pinned her to the wall, and of course her head was in pain from being shoved into the wall, but she felt no discomfort in any area near the front of her shirt. The blue eyed girl had a puzzled look on her face as she searched on her black and white t-shirt for the stain that freaked her friend out. Sure enough, there were three drops of blood to the right of the lion's mane on her shirt, but they were not from her.

"The guy I punched in the jaw must have bled on me" she said calmly as she lifted the cloth so she could look at it better, annoyed that one of her beloved Disney shirts got damaged in the incident.

Tamaki visibly looked like he was shocked at the fact that the girl seemed so annoyed at the stain, but even more so at the thought that she tried to defend herself and managed to hurt her attacker enough to cause him to bleed. It's true that the tall blonde had a problem with wrapping his head around the idea of a girl being able to defend herself without anyone's help. It wasn't because he was sexist, but because he never met a girl that would be able to protect herself before, at least not to his knowledge.

None of the other hosts were surprised. Even though she never acted that way around them, they could tell that their female friend had a fighting spirit and wouldn't let anyone hurt her without them being hurt as well.

"Did you hit the other one as well?" Kaoru asked as he repositioned himself to sit next to Michelle, just like Hunny was.

"Yeah, I was able to crush his foot before I took off. I should have done the same to the purple haired one, maybe I could have completely gotten away then" the girl said looking down at the ground while she scolded herself for not being smart enough to immobilize both of them.

"That explains why the other jerk was limping" Hikaru muttered, annoyed that she was able to get a punch in, but he wasn't able to.

Before anyone else could say anything, Kyouya finally approached the group as he snapped his cell phone shut.

"The zoo's security guards just picked up the two miscreants and they are handing them over to the local authorities" the grey eyed boy said as he nonchalantly fixed his glasses and stood next to Mori and Hikaru. Closing her eyes with relief, Michelle took a deep breath as she felt totally secure again.

It was over.

Not having to worry about anything again, a thought popped into her head.

"Not that I'm complaining in any way, shape, or form, but what are you guys doing here? I thought you were heading on to the giraffes, or was it the elephants first?" the girl asked as she panned around to look each of her friends in their eyes.

"Tachibana called me when he arrived at the gate and told me that you hadn't gotten there yet" Kyouya coolly answered first as if nothing at all had happened moments ago.

"We were thought that you had gotten lost or that you were ditching your responsibilities, so we all rerouted our tour to come out here" her antagonizer said as he added the last part to make it sound like she owed them for making them change their plans.

The strawberry blonde scoffed at Kyouya's explanation before she thought _'he knew that I wasn't lost, nor that I would I ditch my given job. I wonder why he really did worry about my whereabouts.'_

"Don't listen to him Michelle-san" Tamaki said in defense of his best friend's uncaring comment as he wrapped the girl in a smothering hug, "We were just worried about your safety and I'm glad we were!"

"Me to!" chirped Honey as he reached over to hug the two blonde hosts next to him.

"Same!" the twins said as they joined the group hug as well.

Smiling at the amount of love that she was receiving, even though they were hugging her hard enough to cause her to physically wince from all the pain, she knew that she had truly found people who cared about her and her safety. Happy with that thought and at the fact that her eyesight was fixing itself, meaning that she didn't receive a serious head injury, Michelle thanked them all again from the bottom of her heart.

"It's a shame that during the unpleasant situation you went through, you managed to shatter the contents of some of your bags" a cool voice said as he snapped all of the hosts out of their happy and loving hug. Lifting the gift bag that was filled with the items he purchased, Kyouya showed the group the jagged shards of glass and ceramic that were the only remains of his expensive items.

"I'm afraid that I'll have to add the price of these Wedgewood and Iladro pieces to your debt Michelle. But don't worry, I won't charge interest on them since it wasn't entirely your fault" he said with the creepy grin that Kyouya gets when he manipulates people deeper into debt with him.

Merely rolling her eyes at his comment, both because she had expected her antagonizer to say something like that and simply to annoy him by not visually caring about his threat, Michelle slowly, and with help from her friends, even though she didn't need it at that point, got up from the ground and walked with all the hosts to the black limo that was waiting for them at the zoo's entrance.

If she knew them better, she would have thought it was strange that Kyouya didn't make any reference about taking her to a hospital in order to make sure that none of her injuries were dangerous, like he normally would have, nor did any of the other hosts. It's not that they didn't worry about her health, it's just that the girl was doing an excellent job at hiding the pain she was in. Well, except for the cringe during the hug, but they all dismissed that wince of pain as a shudder of shock from being suddenly bull-rushed, or something similar to that.

Once they made it to the limo, they all left the zoo without a second thought. They had seen all of the animals that they really wanted to see, but to put it simply, all of them had had enough excitement for the day.

Hey all! I'm back! Ok, that was a fun chapter to write and I'm sorry it's so long, but it needed to be. Thank you once again for all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on and please let me know what you guys think :) I hope you all are enjoying this story as much as I am and I'll See Ya Soon!


	15. Time Moves On Chapter 15

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Fifteen: Time Moves On**

**~**Tamaki's Sunday**~**

It's early Sunday morning at the Suoh's second manor.

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and it's surprisingly warm for winter. However, instead of planning an outdoor excursion with his friends or wandering by himself through the vast gardens at his home, the blonde heir was still lying in bed. His sheets were a tumbled up mess with most of them lying on the floor.

He wasn't asleep, since he was an early riser, but he was extremely lost in thought. Tamaki was completely baffled about the newest member in his club.

He has a personality quirk that occurs almost instantaneously when he gains close friends; the host prince considers them to be part of his family and the bonds of that family are completely unbreakable in his mind. Thanks not only to his natural disposition, but also because of the fact that Michelle has recently lost her real father, Tamaki started to view her as his daughter from the very beginning. It was killing the amethyst eyed boy that he had to refrain from calling her his daughter, but he didn't want to make the girl uncomfortable, nor did he want to stir up any painful memories for her. Every day he tried his hardest to make sure the female host was comfortable with him and his friends and he was constantly catching himself wanting to refer to himself as 'father'. When she wasn't around, he let the terms 'father', 'mother', and 'daughter' flow freely when he was discussing her with the hosts, but whenever he did, they all reminded him that he had to watch getting comfortable with that terminology.

'_She is always happy, but somewhere she has to be hurting'_ Tamaki thought as he tossed again in his large, light blue satin sheets covered bed.

It concerned him that his 'daughter' was so chipper and polite, even when there wasn't a customer in sight. He could tell that she was a friendly person and every once and a while he noticed her natural smiles, but since the tall blonde could always tell when someone wasn't themselves, he knew that they were a rare occurrence with her.

'_I made Kyouya open up to me, so she shouldn't be as hard to crack as he was_' he thought recalling the long process he went through to make his best friend comfortable around him.

Kyouya is one of those people who has been dealing with the pressures of being the youngest male child of the family, making him ineligible for the family business, his whole life. However, that never stopped the young raven haired boy from trying his hardest to prove his worth to his father in an attempt to be named the rightful heir. Before Tamaki befriended him and got the be-speckled boy to open up more, Kyouya tended to 'paint within the lines', so to speak, and never reached for the stars, even though he was more than gifted enough to do so. Be that as it may, Tamaki was able to finally help his friend realize his true potential because there was just something infectious about the blonde boy's optimism. Well, it was due to the optimism and one of the rare moments that Tamaki showed his own inner wisdom that Kyouya finally realized he was the only one limiting himself and not his father. Since that day Kyouya has been innovatively thinking and acting upon ways to prove his worth to his father and he has been doing rather well with that.

However, Kyouya was not the subject on the blonde boy's mind as he tossed again in his rumpled up bed, it was Michelle. Not only did her insincere happiness trouble him, but he was extremely bothered by how emotionless Michelle was yesterday after her frightening experience.

'_Any person who was almost raped should have been more emotional after the fact, but as soon as we got in the car she acted like nothing happened. During dinner she was smiling and was as polite as usual. It was as if she wasn't concerned about her own safety, nor the fact that we were all worried about her' _the violet eyed boy thought as he tossed yet again.

Before he could get more wrapped up in worries about Michelle, Tamaki felt something heavy plop next to him and something wet streaking across his face.

"ANTOINETTE!"

the startled boy exclaimed at the sight of his happy, but unruly golden retriever. At the sound of her name coming from her beloved master, Antoinette barked before licking his face again. Realizing that he'd have no more contemplative time, the boy squealed at his dog to get off of him.

Overhearing the typical sounds of Tamaki trying in vain to train his pet, the maids outside his room smiled and giggled before they entered with their master's breakfast tray. Smiling as the two girls were able to calm his dog down, Tamaki sincerely thanked them as he sat up in his bed in order to eat. Finishing his food, the blonde shot out of bed and shoved all of his thoughts about Michelle out of his head so he could accomplish all that needed to be done that day.

She wasn't his main problem, which made him rather unlike his best friend.

**~**Michelle's Sunday**~**

Sunday was spent exactly the way Michelle liked to, the entire day at church. She felt better and more at home running around setting up for Mass, assisting CCD, and just helping anyone who needed it. There were several times she forgot she wasn't back home, but for the brief moments that she realized she was a world away from everyone that she loved, Michelle experienced a deep depression. Luckily since there was so much to do, she wasn't able to dwell on her sadness for too long.

When the church activities were over, she kept a cheerful conversation with her guardian while the two of them shared a meal. After dinner, she left him and shut herself up in her room in an attempt to find a way to finish all of the homework she pushed off until then.

"Damn my desire for perfect grades" she muttered as she poured over all the homework that she neglected over the weekend. Again, due to her obsessive compulsive attitude about grades, the girl believed that if she received anything less than a ninety-seven percent on an assignment, her world would crumble. It was about midnight now and Michelle was still typing away on her Japanese history report.

'_At my old school I definitely would've received a hundred and five on this paper' _she thought as she brushed aside a piece of hair that fell in front of her eyes while she was writing her essay in better detail than most novelists.

She always smiled when she recalled all of the above a hundred grades she used to receive at her old school. Yawning as she hit the save button on her laptop before shutting it off, the blue eyed girl glanced at her piano wrist watch and did a double take after reading the time.

'_Crap, I guess I'm not going to get any sleep tonight' _she thought as she read her watch face which said 1:15 on it. Pulling up her AP Science book, the girl calculated what time it was back at her home in America. _'Hmm, I bet my best friend is out with her family now, since Mass should be over, and my next door neighbor is probably getting ready for his music lesson tomorrow' _she thought with a smile.

She longed so to contact all of her old friends, or to even see them for just a second. It's true that the girl had spent time away from all of them before, but it was never without any contact whatsoever. If she wasn't so afraid that someone could check who visited their sites, the strawberry blonde would have at least followed them on Facebook. _'I can't risk that'_ she always reasoned before she attempted to look them up.

'_At least I've found wonderful friends here' _the girl thought as she continued to look over her science book. '_I never thought that I'd find anyone who'd love me and care about me when I left my home in America, but I've been truly blessed with the friends I've found in the host club. They really make me feel at ease when I'm around them, even if they can get really overzealous about things from time to time. _

'_I just hope that I can repay them somehow for saving me yesterday'_ Michelle thought as she paused from her reading to shudder at the day before.

"I can't believe I was almost…" she whispered under her breath, unable to continue saying the sentence out loud. '_God, thank you so much for delivering me to a group of people who can protect me and care for me as I will promise to do for them from here on out'._

Michelle actually was very much like Tamaki in that respect, when she really cared about someone, they became family to her. For example, her best friend was her sister to her, her next-door neighbor was like her older brother to her, she even considered one of the boys that hung around her at church to be her little cousin, and so forth. Whenever she became close to someone, she would become very maternal and wanted to shield them from every harm, in any way possible.

Heaven help the person who tried to hurt one of her close friends.

As three A.M. rolled around, Michelle finally finished her homework. Because of her extreme home sickness, she watched a slide show of pictures from her old church before she got ready for bed. Even though she laughed or smiled at each one, the girl was at the point of tears, that is if she cried. Not even bothering to wash up since she'd be up in about three hours, she shut her lights off and collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Her dreams that night were filled with all of her old friends.

The next four days zoomed by without a hitch. Since she was now not only indebted to the club, but to Kyouya as well, Michelle found her days crammed from morning to night.

First of all, the non-morning person, found herself having to get up an hour earlier than she normally would for school, since she now had to help Kyouya with the designation schedules for the other members before school started. Then, after school she had to immediately rush to the music room to set up for the customers and get the snacks ready. After spending the normal two hours entertaining the guests, the blue eyed girl's duties weren't finished yet. For the next hour or so, Michelle had to clean up, help Kyouya with the records of attendance, and had to track all of the online bids.

She was shocked when she checked the site on Tuesday since the broken earbuds she trashed the day before went for three hundred and fifty yen. '_Why the hell would someone want to buy something that doesn't work?'_ she questioned herself as her eyes widened at the 'confirmed purchase' screen. _'Damn, these rich people are eccentric'_.

After a busy day at school, her responsibilities at church and to her school work still remained. Since Michelle was the type of person to forgo personal comforts rather than turn down helping others, the strawberry blonde spent at least two hours helping Father Kichi before retreating to her bedroom and staying up until at least one a.m. each night to finish her homework.

While working at the club, Michelle actually found herself slowly getting closer with her fellow hosts. The female host especially liked to spend any down time talking with Kaoru. It was hard to do since Kyouya worked her so much and also because she rarely could get to Kaoru without his twin, but she really enjoyed it when she did. Now, it's not that she doesn't like Hikaru, but he was more immature and got moodier than his brother, making him less fun to just idly chat with.

She didn't know it, but Kaoru also found himself enjoying being around Michelle. It's a new experience for him, since he grew up with the mentality that there was just him and his brother and then there was the rest of the world. Not only did the two boys separate themselves from the rest of the world, but they thought that everyone else was a complete idiot. For some strange reason, being around Michelle was as calming and relaxing to the younger twin as it was when he was with Hikaru.

'_It's like she sees me as Kaoru and not as Hikaru's brother or one of the twins'_ Kaoru found himself thinking one day as he was joking with Michelle about the way that one of the teachers looked that morning. _'It's nice to be viewed as my own person' _he thought with a smile.

When she started working off her debt with the host club she was unsure what to do, so Michelle allowed the boys to help her with the set up and clean up on Monday.

But that was the only day.

The strong-willed girl, with her perfectionist tendencies, usually wished to do everything herself. Now she does allow Mori and Hunny to help her from time to time, if she really needed help doing something quicker, but no one else could help her. The two seniors knew that Michelle accepted their help because when they did something, they'd do it right and not goof off. On the other hand, whenever Tamaki and the twins would try to help, they wouldn't do it properly, causing her to have to either re-do it or clean up the mess they made, and that completely annoyed the female host. Since she was finally getting comfortable around the boys, Michelle found herself not only dropping her constant, polite 'interaction' face, but she was often yelling at the twins and Tamaki for their shoddy work. Earlier today she actually shoved the three of them out of the music room and into the hall because they were annoying her so much. Kyouya smirked when he saw how forceful Michelle was getting and at how the sight of someone else being unable to deal with the rowdy trio as well.

Not only did the shadow king approve of the fact that the female host was interacting with the hosts easier, but all of the other boys were glad that Michelle was spending more time with them and they were especially glad that she was getting more comfortable around them. Every one of the hosts could tell that she was dropping her barriers when it was just them and that she was beginning to let them in, even though only Kyouya had any idea of how many layers they still needed to go through in order to reach the real Michelle. Regardless of that, she was joking with them, teasing them, yelling at them, making sarcastic comments, and basically treating them like her close friends. They all were worried about her since she recently lost her parents, but the previous Saturday's episode caused them to worry even more. Since that happened, all of them had separately offered to drive her home or walk with her there, for her safety. However not wanting to destroy her cover story of staying with her aunt and uncle, the blue eyed girl would always turn them down, saying that the incident at the zoo was a fluke and nothing more than a random probability. Because he still had Asunna keeping an eye on her, Kyouya knew that Michelle was spending every night at Heavenly Savior church.

'_No one except for the priest lives there, so she really is lying about staying with an aunt and uncle'_ he thought as he overheard the strawberry blonde turn down Tamaki's third offer that day to drive her home. '_If I can't figure out why she's lying soon, I'm going to inform the others about her living conditions. Maybe if we all approach her, she'll drop all of these lies' _the grey eyed boy thought as he fixed his glasses before telling Michelle that there would be a club meeting tomorrow before she left the room.

"We need to discuss some upcoming events" he said disinterestedly to the newest host member.

"Ok, whatever" was the response he got before she said goodbye to her friends and left the room.

'_She's going to 'love' tomorrow's meeting', _the shadow king thought to himself as a plan formed in his diabolical mind.

Hey all! Hope you are all enjoying this! I'd love to hear from you and thank you so much for all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on :) See Ya Soon!


	16. Valentine Planning Chapter 16

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club nor do I own any songs or TV shows mentioned

**Chapter Sixteen: Valentine Planning**

"As all of you are well aware, St. Valentine's Day is quickly approaching us" the cool voice of Kyouya said to the host members who were all currently sitting on the red, plush velvet sofas in front of him.

Club hours were done for the day, but the vice president had not allowed the members to leave yet and was making them all attend the planned meeting. Hunny and Mori were sharing a sofa on the far right end of the semi-circled group of furniture that Kyouya stood in front of. The two cousins were fully paying attention to the club's shadow king's announcements and the little senior was happily munching on a cake, as usual. Tamaki and Michelle, who were sharing the middle sofa, looked like they were paying attention to the monotone voice of Kyouya, but in reality they faded in and out of their own daydreams. Tamaki was lost in his plans for the next commoner's excursion for the club.

'_Maybe we can all go to that commoner's expo that they are holding next month'_ he happily thought while staring in the direction of his best friend.

The other blonde on the sofa was daydreaming about the fact that her church back in America always threw the best Valentine's party every year,

'_But I doubt it'll be good this year since my dad was always the organizer and I was in charge of the children's crafts and entertainment. Now neither of us are there…_' she inwardly morosely thought as she was picking at the chipping bright orange nail polish on her fingers as she also blankly stared at Kyouya.

The twins, lounging on the far left sofa, were the only ones visibly not paying attention to the meeting. Hikaru had pulled out his game console as soon as club hours ended and Kaoru resumed his perch over the older one's shoulder and was watching his brother play.

"As previously discussed, we will all refuse any official or unofficial gifts from our female customers this year" the tall dark haired boy said to the male members of the group.

"Great idea" the two doppelgangers spoke without removing their attention from the game they were playing.

"Yeah, we're tired of having to send for a truck to take all our gifts home on that day" Hikaru pompously said.

"It's so frustrating being so popular sometimes" Kaoru nonchalantly said as he pointed at the tiny game screen to alert his brother to a potential danger.

Completely disgusted at the spoiled, rich brat act that the twins to her left were enacting and actually momentarily paying attention to the current discussion, Michelle spoke up.

"I've always found it weird that _only_ the girls give Valentine's presents here. I mean, in America everyone would have thought that a girl who did that was strange" she said with a small look of disgust that was mainly aimed at Hikaru and Kaoru.

"Wait, no one gives chocolates on St. Valentine's Day in America Mi-chan?" Hunny inquisitively mumbled with his mouth full, looking up from his cake visibly puzzled at the thought.

"Mitzkuni, it's rude to talk with your mouth full" Mori scolded his chipper little cousin in a completely deadpan voice.

Slightly frustrated that she had to clarify her stated opinion, Michelle sighed before she responded. "I didn't say that Hunny-Sempai. In America it's the boyfriend who is required to give a gift to his girlfriend, chocolate, or if he wishes, something else. She could get him a gift if she wants to, but it isn't as bad if she doesn't. However, a boy would most likely be dumped if he didn't get his girlfriend a gift on that day" she said, trying to cover all the bases so another question wouldn't be asked.

"I completely agree with the fair Michelle, I've always found it rather ungentlemanly to accept any bestowal of affection in the form of sweets from a maiden" Tamaki said flamboyantly, acting as if the mere thought of accepting a present from a girl questioned his manhood in some way.

"As it is in America, in Europe it is the gentleman's job to provide a gift for his beloved" he said as he somehow made a pure white rose appear in his hands while he gallantly got off the couch and kneeled in front of Michelle as he grandly presented her with the flower.

Rolling her eyes at his actions, Michelle debated to herself what part of his speech she should attack. "_Should I point out that it's rather sexist to think that a guy can't rightly accept a gift from a girl, or should I retort that 'beloved' crack that he just made?"_

Before she had a chance to say anything, and before Kaoru acted on the flare of anger that welled up inside of him when his boss referred to Michelle as 'beloved', the cool voice of Kyouya broke into the off-topic discussion, causing the ignored and dejected prince to slink back to his seat on his couch with his rose still in his grasp.

"There is a day that the boys give gifts to the girls who gave them presents on St. Valentine's Day" Kyouya said with a clear undertone of aggravation in his voice that he was interrupted before he could finish his address.

"It's called White Day and is celebrated-"

he started to explain before the impatient girl interrupted him.

"A month later on March 14th, I know that" the female host said, annoyed that her original comment had been lost and that Kyouya was talking down to her at that point.

"Exactly" the grey eyed boy said with a smirk as he fixed his glasses before he continued, solely addressing his annoyance. "However, even though the male members of the group will not be participating in the holiday, since you are the first official female member I have decided that you will give a performance for a group of the young gentlemen from this school on that day".

At the mention of Michelle being the first official girl host, all of the others started to think about the poor honor student that they tried to coerce into joining the club, just one month before Michelle arrived. A girl by the name of Haruhi had stumbled into the third music room one day and managed to break a very expensive vase, exactly like the one that broke during Michelle and Tamaki's performance. In fact, the vase that Hunny broke that night as he saved the tiara was the replacement vase that the club bought after Haruhi's act of clumsiness. However, Haruhi was only a part of the host club for two weeks, due to Tamaki's father's reaction to the incident. When the indignant headmaster found out that his son and his son's friends were blackmailing a fellow student, he paid for the vase and in doing so, he purchased Haruhi's freedom as well. Determined not to lose another member due to their antics, Kyouya made sure to only blackmail a person who was already a member into doing host work, so it wouldn't draw attention to any change in that student's behavior.

Not knowing about Haruhi and being caused to reminisce at the shadow king's comment, Michelle was instead shocked and offended at the idea of her giving a performance to a male only audience as a 'gift'.

"Hold up", she said rather un-ladylike as she raised her voice at the tall boy in front of her and jolted out of the proper posture that she always reverted to when she sat, "Let me get this straight, are you implying that I am now to give a performance to a bunch of the school's richest guys as a Valentine's gift, just because you have decided that it would be more advantageous for you?"

Smirking that he got her to react again, Kyouya folded his arms and said in a matter of fact lilt,

"Precisely".

Disgusted at the thought that he was basically selling her out to sing for the richest males, Michelle was now bordering on flat out yelling at the smug Kyouya when she said

"Who the hell do you think I am? I'm not some sort of lounge singer who flaunts her feminity to a crowd. If you think I'm doing that, you are completely out of your mind buddy."

"I think you are someone who can offer an enjoyable evening of song to a few of the most influential young men that our school has, a young lady who can easily croon some sappy love songs for the occasion, _and_ an indebted host club member" was the response that the raven haired boy, who was now smiling the creepily happy smile he has when he corners someone, gave.

Refusing to back down, as she now normally did around the hosts, Michelle just slumped back into her corner of the sofa and crossed her arms poutingly before she responded.

"Those all may be true, but I'm still telling you that there is no way in hell that I'm going to sing by myself to a group of guys, no matter how rich or influential they are, so good luck getting someone else to be your cheap holiday gimmick," she said mimicking the air of superiority that she was receiving from Kyouya.

Annoyed that she wasn't giving in to the blackmail that he held over her, the tall boy fixed his glasses so Michelle wouldn't be able to see his eyes as he continued the current argument.

"Do I need to restate the last part of what I said again, or do you have a better idea?" he seethed at the blue eyed girl.

Muttering under her breath for a couple minutes, Kyouya thought he had won before the girl exclaimed,

"I've got it!"

while she sat up straight in her seat with a smile on her face from the fact that she didn't have to compromise herself and give in to her antagonizer again.

"Got what Mi-chan?" Hunny chirped with his mouth partially full of the cake he was eating.

"Mitzkuni, I just told you, it's rude to talk with your mouth full" Mori re-stated unemotionally before allowing Michelle to explain her 'brilliant' idea.

"Since flying pigs will play croquet with the stars long before I will ever give a solo performance for an all male audience, and since I've heard some of you attempt to sing…" she said shooting a glance at the twins, who had put their game down a while ago to watch Michelle and Kyouya argue. They gave each other an overly dramatic and obviously fake look of shock as if the two redheads had no idea what she was talking about. But in fact, they knew that the strawberry blonde had overheard them 'singing' along to "Beat it" on their mp3 player one afternoon and saw that she quickly left the room after she heard them, plugging up her ears in the process.

"How 'bout we hold an audition for the 'honor' of singing a few well known love songs with me? It will stir up more interest, be a better gimmick, and it'll be less awkward for me to sing to a single person since it'll just be like a normal theatrical show and not a lounge performance at that point" Michelle stated, using air quotes when she said the word honor and making sure that she emphasized to Kyouya that it would financially work better in the long run.

Pondering for a moment in order to calculate the girl's proposal, Kyouya realized that she might have a good point. '_The rise in interest of the show would indeed sky-rocket with such a gimmick'_, he thought. However, not wanting to lose the upper hand, the raven haired boy coolly asked, "It would still be an all male audience, correct?"

"Yes, and I'll even back out of the audience selection process" the female host responded, even though she knew full well that her opinion in that matter wouldn't have counted anyway.

"Fine"

Kyouya said as he pulled out his notebook to write down the terms they had just set regarding the Valentine's performance. "Auditions will start next Friday, a week from today, Michelle, Tamaki, and I will be the judges, we will start rehearsal for the show the following Saturday, and you and I will meet here tomorrow to make the list of songs for the performance" Kyouya said to the club, only addressing Michelle for the last part.

"AUDITIONS?"

Tamaki happily exclaimed as he leapt from his seat. "We can set it up like the famous American show, 'American Idol' in honor of our American singer and to give her a little piece of home right here" the violet eyed boy said as he started to envision a grand production for next Friday.

"We'll print and design the ads for it" the twins chimed in, happy to put their computer skills to a better use than just managing the host club's website design.

Realizing that he got everything done that he needed to for this meeting and that he didn't need to officially dismiss the meeting due to the excited chatter that filled the room, Kyouya retreated silently to his laptop.

'_Great. This sounds like such fun…' _the strawberry blonde girl thought sarcastically_._

'_What have I gotten myself into again?'_ Michelle thought as she got up to finish the clean-up for the day, so she could leave.

Hey all! First of all, I really need to thank CrimsonSnowEye for her completely beautiful comment (and I want to let you know that I PROMISE that Kaoru will become a pivotally important main character, I just think with his personality it takes him a little while to open up) and Acir Tools for her continual support as my biggest fan, so truly… thank you. Ok, in this chapter I explained why Haruhi isn't in my fanfic, and I doubt she will ever make another appearance, but it just felt weird not saying anything about her. Oh, and a HUGE virtual cookie for the person who can tell me where I got that "flying pigs playing croquet with the stars", that's a toughie ;) Thank you to all who have signed up for story alerts and so on and I hope you are all enjoying this story as much as I am :) See Ya Soon!


	17. The Annoying Afternoon Chapter 17

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor Apple software, nor any of the songs mentioned.

**Chapter Seventeen: The Annoying Afternoon**

As usual, typing could be heard from the room of the Ootori's third son's monochromatic room that Saturday evening. Kyouya had recently gotten back from a frustrating afternoon in the third music room with his protagonist, Michelle. The two of them, as scheduled the day before, were trying to arrange a program for her St. Valentine's performance and instead of it being a simple hour long meeting, it took them over five hours of bantering and arguing to get the schedule set. Since neither of the hosts at the meeting cared for songs that expressed one's inner feelings and emotions, one would think that it would have been easier for them to agree on something, however the girl tried to pick the most unemotional songs that she could, while the boy was trying to pick the more romantic and sultry songs because they were well known crowd pleasers.

'_That meeting was one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had and it was the most aggravating meeting I've had with someone who wasn't my moronic best friend_', Kyouya thought while he rubbed his aching temples as he paused his work for a moment to reflect on the source of today's tension headache.

**~**Flashback**~**

It was now three in the afternoon and the mood was getting so tense in the host club's opulent coral-colored room in Ouran Academy that a passer-by would have been able to feel the frustration radiating into the hallway. A raven haired teen and a sapphire eyed young woman were sitting down at one of the mahogany tables and if there weren't scattered papers all over the dark wooden surface, one would have thought that the two were enjoying a Westerner's afternoon tea together, complete with scones and cucumber sandwiches. However, afternoon teas never last as long as their meeting was lasting and usually people do not scowl at the person sitting across from them at teas either.

"'Endless Love' is a good love song and a classic" the grey eyed boy said to the girl who was sitting across from him as he was getting ready to write it on his list.

'_This meeting is taking my precious time away from me and it is preventing me from actually attending to important matters'_ Kyouya thought with displeasure as his pen reached the paper on his notebook.

"What? Are you kidding me? That's way too sappy" the strawberry blonde interjected with a scoff before Kyouya could even finish writing the first letter of the song title.

"How 'bout 'People Will Say We Are in Love' from Oklahoma?" Michelle asked as she skimmed over her list of possible Valentine songs.

Shaking his head at that suggestion, Kyouya fixed his glasses and asked, while using all of his will power to remain calm, "Isn't the premise of that song a discussion between two people who spend the entire number figuring out how to look like they aren't in love?"

'_Damn it. It totally sounds like a love song from the title! I didn't expect him to know American musicals and I was really hoping to snag him on that one_' Michelle thought as she annoyedly crossed it off of her list.

"Yes"

she muttered while she scanned the remaining songs on her list again. She was also getting extremely frustrated with the fact that neither of them could agree on anything, not that one could tell since she was truly getting better at internalizing the irritation that was being caused by the host's shadow king.

'_This stupid performance is giving me nothing but grief'_ she thought as she rescanned her list of songs, '_I mean I'm not even benefiting from this damn show in any way, only Mr. 'I'd sell out my own grandmother for a profit' over here is._'

After about twenty more minutes of the two of them arguing back and forth about song selections, the raven haired boy pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back the headache that the stubborn girl was giving him. Beginning to a headache herself, Michelle jolted when Kyouya grumbled after several moments of strained silence,

"hand me your iPod" in a clearly annoyed voice as he readjusted his glasses.

"Why?"

she asked, slightly afraid that he would either damage or confiscate her precious item due to her uncooperative attitude. Reading her mind again, the boy put on his false polite face before he coolly said, "I'll give it back and unharmed in a moment".

Knowing that he had something up his sleeve that would probably trap her in the end, but being curious as to how, the strawberry blonde reached into her grey Disneyland Paris messenger bag for her music player. Taking the well used device that was covered with various superhero and Disney stickers from the girl, Kyouya started to scroll through the playlists and most played songs on the item. Watching in puzzlement, the blue eyed girl noticed that he was writing things down in his beloved notebook every once and a while. Unfortunately from where she was sitting, she couldn't see what he was writing, but she assumed that they were song titles. After about thirty minutes of silence, where the only noise that could be heard in the room was that of Kyouya writing and crossing things off, the be-speckled boy ripped a sheet out of his notebook and plopped it in front of his companion. On it there was a list of love songs, some of which were crossed off, but there were ten duets and four solos that weren't. This is what the piece of paper looked like:

Duets

A Whole New World—Aladdin

For the First Time—Tarzan

Ten Minutes Ago—Cinderella (Rogers & Hammerstein)

So This is Love—Cinderella (Disney)

True Love's Kiss—Enchanted

We Could Be in Love—Lea Solanga

At the Beginning—Anastasia

Elephant Love Medley—Moulin Rouge

All I Ask of You—Phantom of the Opera

Can I Have This Dance—High School Musical 3

Solos

Tammy—Debbie Reynolds

Hopelessly Devoted to You—Grease

Something About Us—Clay Aiken

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend—Marilyn Monroe

"This is the performance list for St. Valentine's Day, but not necessarily in that order" he stated unemotionally as he crossed his arms as if to say she had no choice in the matter. Before she looked them all over to complain, Kyouya added as he pushed his glasses up again,

"These melodies are among the most played songs, so you are familiar with them and you can't think they are too 'sappy', as you would say, since you obviously enjoy them" he said as he added the figurative last nail in the coffin.

'_Crap, I can't believe that my iPod betrayed me'_ Michelle thought as she looked at the list of songs that she had to sing.

"Fine" she said, unable to debate with Kyouya anymore, even thought she inwardly wanted to.

Scribbling down the list of songs onto her own notebook, taking her iPod back, and cleaning up the small mess she made from her papers and her tea and scone, Michelle checked if there was anything else he was going to make her do before she left the room in a huff, obviously annoyed with the day's discussion and outcome.

**~**End Flashback**~**

Thinking back at how sarcastic and annoyed Michelle was earlier that day, Kyouya could not help but smirk as he saved the thesis statement of his upcoming twenty-page science report on his pineapple laptop_._

'_She should have learned by now that I will always win in the end'_ he thought smugly as he readjusted the black velvet pillow he was leaning against on his grey quilted covered bed_._

'_The sooner she figures that out, the sooner I can get to the bottom of where she comes from and who she is'. _Kyouya thought as he recalled the true source of his frustration with her. _'Once again, she proved to me that she has to come from a well-to-do family because she was quite familiar with and comfortable with this afternoon's Westerner's tea setting. Now, I've investigated every wealthy American that has legally moved to Japan in the last two-three months, I did extensive research on the family backgrounds of all registered staff and parishioners of Heavenly Savior, and I've had Asunna following her every step, but I still have no clue who she is. She couldn't have just materialized out of nothing'_ he thought while he pushed up his glasses as he fumed at his failure at solving the mystery that enshrouds Michelle.

While it was true that Kyouya absolutely hated the feeling of powerlessness that came from not knowing every little detail about every student, somewhere along his quest to find out her true identity, the grey eyed boy's investigation became almost an obsession to him. For example, whenever he could, the shadow king would try to overhear what Michelle was saying during club hours, in a vain attempt to find out another clue. Or, whenever he got a hold of one of her belongings, even something as simple as her iPod, Kyouya would try his hardest to memorize every detail, praying that it will help him get rid of one of the walls that kept him from finding out the female host's identity.

'_Her music list was rather intriguing though'_ he thought to himself as he recalled the eclectic mix on his nuisance's playlists, in an attempt to get his mind off of the annoying enigma of her past. Looking back on the time that he was scrolling through her iPod, he remembered that it was extremely difficult for him to find as many love songs as he did since for some reason, her music taste strongly veered away from such emotions. '_An exceeding amount of Disney songs were on there, as I expected, but there were also a lot of hard metal and extreme punk songs. Most of the songs that I recognized have a rather hard edge to them and push the message of total independence and inner strength. In fact, the only place that I have heard any of those songs was at the extreme sporting events that my family attends, due to our sponsorship of the medical equipment there. I was truly not expecting that much of an inner rebel with her_',

the grey eyed boy thought as he removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes as he finished typing up and saving all of the song titles that he could recall from his brief encounter with her iPod on the file in his computer that he has on Michelle. Once he saved that document, he went online to pull up his current stock portfolio, as it has become a habit of his to do so every night. After several minutes of looking over all of his personal investments, the exhausted boy logged off of his laptop, pleased with the outcome of this week's stock market, and shut his light off to get to sleep.

Hey everyone! Sorry that this chapter is so short, but I needed a little filler between Kyouya and Michelle before I dive into 'American Idol-Ouran Style', which I promise is coming in the next chapter Eva! Btw, thank you so much Eva for your comment and appreciation of the 'flying pigs' joke and thank you Acir Tools for you constant support and for your totally kind comment. All comments, good or not, really mean the world to me, so thank you for those who have. As always, I want to thank all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on :) See Ya Again Soon!


	18. Audition Time! Chapter 18

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own American Idol or the judges

**Chapter Eighteen: Audition Time!**

'_I can't believe that this week is already almost gone_'

Michelle thought as she rushed through the now completely familiar hallways of Ouran Academy. Today is Friday, the day that she, the president, and vice president of the host club were holding auditions to find her performance partner for the St. Valentine's performance.

'_This is the last day I wanted to be late, but I couldn't help it! Hinachi-Sensai wanted to talk to me about soloing at our next school concert. I hope Kyouya doesn't try to penalize me or something stupid like that, for being so late' _the strawberry blonde thought as she turned down the next to last hallway before she reached the stairs that led straight to the music room's corridor. She was about to turn down the last hallway and sprint up the stairs that separated her from her destination when the sapphire eyed girl skidded to a halt at the sight ahead her. In front of the female host was a line of young men that looked like it started at all the way over at the music room and winded its way down the staircase to where she was. Upon seeing the crowd, Michelle was completely caught off guard and immediately retreated back to the hallway she was just rushing down.

'_They can't all be auditioning, can they be?'_

the girl thought as she cautiously peered around the corner, hoping not to catch anyone's attention. Being in the state of curiosity and shock that she was in from the gaggle of guys in front of her, she didn't notice her tall antagonist glide up to her, not that he made any noise as he walked. When the boy who seemed to materialize out of nowhere suddenly spoke into her ear, Michelle physically jumped when she heard the cool voice say,

"Ah, I thought you had gotten lost"

Now Kyouya knew that she hadn't gotten lost, but he truly didn't care what her excuse was. He was more concerned at the fact that their customers were being delayed from their auditions due to Michelle's tardiness and he was not pleased with that at all. Even though he was displeased at her lateness, the shadow king couldn't help but smirk when he saw the female host jolt when he spoke to her.

"What are they all doing here?" the girl asked, ignoring the grey eyed boy's smug statement as she motioned to the long line of their fellow schoolmates.

Looking at her as if she was asking a completely obvious question, Kyouya pompously fixed his glasses as he said, "Why, they are all here to audition to sing with you".

Regardless of the fact that they were both delaying the auditions at this point, at the sight of Michelle being in shock at the response to the auditions, the raven haired boy couldn't resist teasing her a little first.

"You did say that we should hold auditions for the 'honor' of singing with you" he spoke up again, purposefully stressing the word honor, which was the exact word she used a week ago.

"I was totally kidding when I used that word! Didn't you see the sarcastic air quotes that I used when I said that?" she asked as she whispered agitatedly at the calm boy in front of her.

"Well, the twins didn't think that you were" Kyouya smirked again as he pulled out the ad, which described the audition, that had been circulating the school for the past four days. Snatching it from the taunting boy, Michelle angrily muttered,

"I'm going to literally strangle those two the next time I see them" as she read the ad in her hands.

The sheet of paper she was holding was as bright and colorful as a neon rainbow, had the most ridiculously chibi icons floating around on the sheet, and the font on the ad reminded her of a circus ad. It looked nothing at all like the serious 'help wanted' ad that it was supposed to be.

'_If those morons ever made an audition ad like this back in the States, no professional actor would ever take this thing seriously,'_ she thought to herself as she glared at the disgusting words on the sheet.

Here's what the overly hyped up ad said about today's audition:

'Have you always wondered what it would feel like to hold the lovely Michelle, the sapphire eyed gem of the host club, in a loving embrace as she professed words of everlasting and enduring love to you in the form of a song? Well, now's your chance! If you have a good voice and feel up to performing with her on stage, come and audition for this once in a lifetime opportunity to win the honor of being her singing partner in our upcoming performance! This Friday only!'

With every written word, Michelle was deepening her look of anger and now she was looking at the paper as if she had death rays in her eyes, rather like the way she looks at Kyouya when he pisses her off.

"Well, come on, they're all waiting for us"

Kyouya said after a couple of seconds as he swiftly plucked the paper from her crushing grip on it and put his arm at the small of her back to escort her to the music room. He did so so quickly that Michelle didn't have a chance to fully get out of her angry mode to stop the shadow king from shoving her out into the hallway. This time when she stepped around the corner, the moment she emerged a loud and boisterous cheer arose from the awaiting males, along with a flurry of

"I can't wait for you to hear me",

"Pick me",

and "I hope you like the way I sound" coming from the line of boys.

'_God I hate these overly excited Japanese boys'_ Michelle thought as she instantly, and without thinking, plastered her fake and polite dazzling smile onto her face.

"I'd like to wish all of you the best of luck and I greatly look forward to hearing you sing as well,"

she said in a sweet voice as she and Kyouya worked their way to the Host Club's room. Noting again how perfectly and quickly she reacted to the crowd after being in such a deadly mood moments before, the be-spectacled boy thought about how Michelle would react to the grand set up that the hosts made behind the gilded host room doors. Finally making it past all of the auditioners and now standing in front of the third music room, Kyouya removed his arm from the strawberry blonde's back and reached out to open the door for her. She was anxious to get inside and away from the extremely anxious guys and was about to instinctually walk into the room as always, but as soon as the vice president opened the door, Michelle stopped in her tracks and had to rapidly blink her eyes in order to see anything at all in the surprisedly darkened room. Unlike the normal, bright pastel sunlit environment that she was expecting, all of the windows were covered and the only light that she could see came from a couple of moving spotlights that were off to the side. Even though everything around it was dark, she noticed that directly in front of her was the large, silver 'American Idol' emblem hanging on a dark blue curtain that completely hid the rest of the room behind it. Noticing that she paused in order to see where she was going and not wanted her to either trip and fall, nor did he want his classmates outside to see what was inside until they were fully ready, Kyouya took Michelle by the arm and led her in, quickly closing the door behind them. Finally fully regaining her sight, the blue eyed girl was going to thank her antagonist for his random act of kindness when Tamaki ran up to her in his overly excited manner and grabbed her arm, which Kyouya had already released.

"Isn't this so exciting?" he asked, so anxious to hear her response that he was actually wiggling with anticipation.

"Well, what do you think of our set? Doesn't it look exactly like the real set that you have back in America?" he hurriedly said, not waiting for her answer to his first question, while sweeping his arm around excitedly to make sure that she looked at everything around them in order to absorb it all. Still stunned to see the room decorated differently, since it was the first time that she had been in that room when it wasn't, well normal, it wasn't until the third question that the strawberry blonde responded to the host king.

"I wouldn't know, I've never seen the show before" Michelle somewhat meekly said, since she knew that Tamaki would be shocked and bombard her with a whole new slew of questions, and she really was not in the mood to explain herself, yet again. The blue eyed girl just wanted to get this show on the road so they could get back to normal again. However since she was right about what his reaction would be, the tall blonde instantly released her arm and posed himself into an overdramatic look of shock when she said she had never seen the American pop culture show.

"WHAT? I thought that all Americans sat around their TV screens with cell phones in their hands on the night that the show came on, in order to vote for their favorite idol! Oh, poor poor deprived Michelle, you have missed out on a major American tradition" he said, ending his rant by smothering the female host in one of his boa constrictor like hugs.

"Um, Tamaki" the muffled voice of the girl spoke up, "Most of the people I know never watched American Idol, so it's really not that big of a deal".

"Don't mind him" the cool voice of the vice president said from behind the curtain, "Tamaki often gets wrapped up in incorrect stereotypes".

"Ah," Michelle said to Kyouya's comment as she gently pushed Tamaki off of her. Finally shaking off the shock of the room, the strawberry blonde clicked back into her polite interaction mode and wanted to make Tamaki feel good about the set that he was so excited about.

"I must admit you guys did a really good job setting this room up though. Even though I've never seen the show, I've seen the 'American Idol Experience' several times at Disney World and this is almost exactly what it looks like there" she said with a smile as she gracefully motioned to the decorations around them.

Bouncing back to the chipperness that he dropped when his best friend made the snide remark, Tamaki put his arms onto her shoulders and asked, "REALLY? You've seen American Idol live?"

"No, no, no. I've seen the American Idol Experience which is a live action show that simulates the actual American Idol. However it's in Disney's Hollywood Studios, so it's not the real one that films in L.A." Michelle said with a true smile, reminiscing about all of the amazing memories that came rushing back at her current comment. Back when her parents were alive and she lived in America, the four of them (including her best friend, Wren) would go down to Disney World about five times a year. Outside of her church, Walt Disney World was the only place on earth that Michelle felt the most at home, well that is before she found a quasi-home in the host club.

"Ok, everything's ready for the first 'contestant'" the twins said eagerly as they appeared from behind the curtain that Kyouya had disappeared behind a little while ago.

"GREAT!"

Tamaki exclaimed as he grabbed Michelle's arm again and excitedly pulled her behind the dark blue curtain to a better lit room that had a large open space and across from it, a silver desk with three matching chairs.

"Ok, time to assign the roles! I'm going to be the lovable Randy Jackson that everyone wants to hear his opinion, since he is always so kind" Tamaki said as he pointed to the chair that was on the right as he and Michelle walked around it so they could take their places. "You'll be the beautiful Paula Abdul; the equally kind and sweet female judge" he continued as he chivalrously pulled out her chair for her. "And-" Tamaki started before Kyouya interrupted him while he sat down in the last chair on the row.

"I'm going to be the Simon Cowell character" he said as he wrote down the girl's recent comment about being at Disney World while calculating that Michelle must either live in Florida, near enough to it that traveling there is not difficult, or be extremely rich as he always supposed.

"Hmm, you get the easy role Kyouya" Michelle scoffed as she pulled her chair closer to the table, slightly jealous and annoyed that she wouldn't get to be the one to speak her mind.

"While I might have the ability to say what I feel about the 'contestant's' voice due to my role, we must remember that they are still customers and must always be treated as such" he coolly said, making sure that Michelle knew that she had to still act like the host she was.

"Duh,"

the blue eyed girl disinterestedly said, looking over the pad of paper and the shiny silver pen that was in front of her and annoyed that Kyouya didn't know by now that she knew she had an image of sweetness to maintain.

"So, what are the other hosts going to be doing while we listen to the auditions?" Michelle asked without looking up as she made a judging key on her pad of paper so she'd be able to just quickly and discretely jot down notes about each performer.

"I'm so glad you asked!"

Tamaki exclaimed as he grandly took his seat next to the strawberry blonde. "The twins will be Ryan Seacrest and interview each person briefly, to give it more of a realistic feel, and Hunny-Sempai and Mori-Sempai are walking down the line outside, taking each 'contestant's' name, and giving them a number. When they are done, Hunny-Sempai will come back inside to introduce each auditioner to us and Mori-Sempai will play the part of the security guard" the tall blonde boy described, dripping with excitement about each and every part of the grand production that he had thought up. As soon as he finished his brief description of the proceedings, Hunny came through the front doors with a check board and shuffled over to the desk where the three 'judges' were sitting while his taciturn cousin slowly strode in behind him. On the smaller cousin's check board there was a complete list of all of the 'contestants', a list that filled six pages, front and back.

"Takashi and I are finished! Are you guys ready?" the little boy said, obviously as excited as Tamaki was, while Mori just silently took his position by the now drawn dark blue curtain.

"We're ready!" the twins exclaimed as they quickly scampered to take their position outside the dark blue curtain, fully shutting it behind them so they could do their interviews without bothering the auditions that were about to be held in the open area in front of the desk.

"SEND IN THE CONTESTANTS!" Tamaki said as he exuberantly leapt up from his chair with his pointer finger wagging in front of him, striking some sort of dramatic pose yet again.

'_Alright, let's get this started'_

Michelle thought as she braced herself for the slew of auditions that she was about to listen to. It was rather weird for her to think that she was going to be on the flip side of the audition process today, after being the auditioner herself for so long.

'_I just hope it's not going to be too hard to pick a singer from this group, I mean there are so many of them'_ she thought as the spotlights dimmed inside the audition area, signifying that the twins were already interviewing the first person.

Hey All! I'm back again! After all of the wonderful reviews I had to show you guys how much I appreciate them and what better way than through another chapter release! Seriously, you guys fueled me to write faster and since I'm still on summer break, I can. Don't expect this when school starts, but for now I def can thank you in this way :) Oh and be prepared to welcome a new character to the fanfic. It's about time that I started expanding on the Ouran universe.

Ok, let me go in order of reviewer. **Kitty**—Aww! Thank you for your comment! The club as a whole will find out a little bit more about Michelle, but not everything and not for quite a few chapters. As for the whole truth about Michelle's secret (remember that even she has no clue why she's there) that'll take even longer, so please continue to be patient with me, it'll be worth it (I hope you'll all agree)! **Acir Tools**—my biggest fan :D I'm assuming you meant update and not review, but if I'm wrong, what do you want me to review? **CrimsonSnowEye**—Why would I ever want to kill a person with such amazing comments? And trust me, I know how ify the internet is in Europe, so no problem! True, Kyouya would have pushed it further if she didn't give in at all, but I'm trying to make her character a little stronger so she's even more annoying to him lol. Even though there was no way that I could really put in what Kaoru felt about the ad in this chapter, I will let you know that his brother wrote the words and because Kaoru didn't want him to catch on to his growing crush, the younger brother didn't have the courage to ask him to re-write it, even though it does bother him.

Phew, lol. Well, thank you all once again for the comments, 'story fav', and 'story alert' notifications and I'll see ya soon! :)


	19. The Auditions Continue Chapter 19

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, American Idol, Boise sound systems, Cunard cruise lines, nor any of the songs mentioned

**Chapter Nineteen: The Auditions Continue**

'_Gah, I don't know how much longer my ears can handle this kind of abuse!'_

Michelle thought as it took every ounce of her will power to keep her dazzling smile plastered upon her face while another 'contestant' completely murdered the song that he was 'singing'. The faux 'American Idol' auditions have been going on in the third music room for over three and a half hours now, and not a single person out of the hundred or so 'contestants' that they have heard already, could sing properly at all.

'_I really don't get it' _the strawberry blonde thought as she tried to block out the noise that currently filled the room, '_it's like I'm in some sort of endless bad karaoke party or something. I mean, none of them can carry a tune at all! I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to chose a singing partner because I thought that there would be a lot of 'ok' singers, not that I couldn't at least find one guy who wasn't completely tone deaf!'_

After the current 'contestant' finished his song, Tamaki leapt to his feet and applauded his fellow classmate, as he always did.

'_Does he really think that he sang well? Is he just playing his role of Ruben to the hilt? Or is it the fact that he's just getting wrapped up in this whole audition excitement?'_ Michelle wondered while Tamaki lavished praises on the performance that the strawberry blonde would have to make up some sort of false, but kind comment about again.

Having a similar outlook as the girl to the left of him, Kyouya drew a line through the current 'contestant's' name, knowing that he would be another unacceptable choice for the St. Valentine's performance.

'_I was unaware that there were so many musically challenged students in attendance at Ouran'_ he snidely thought as he relooked over the list of audition songs that he picked. _'None of the songs that I chose are difficult, so why can't any of these students sing them? At this point Michelle might have to give the solo performance that I originally planned, unless she wants to pay for a professional singer to sing the duets with her'_ the dark haired boy thought as he waited for Michelle to finish making her comment before he said his lines.

"Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to audition today. After some deliberation amongst us judges, the host club will announce the winner 'or _lack thereof one_' by next Tuesday."

The shadow king said, not without thinking what he seriously wished to say to the person standing in front of the judges' table. At Kyouya's lines, Mori stepped forward to escort the 'contestant' out of the room in order to prepare for the next one. Michelle then signaled Hunny to come over to her and asked him how many auditioners were left, inwardly praying that the little senior would say that the 'contestant' leaving at the moment was the last one of the day, since she didn't have a check list like Kyouya did.

"Seventy-seven"

was the little blonde's energetic response to the female host's question. The way he answered her, it was obvious that he was as excited about the faux 'American Idol' as Tamaki was.

"Great"

Michelle sarcastically said with a cough, hoping that her coughing would somewhat mask her non-excited response. Hearing his friend cough and over-reacting, as usual, Tamaki whisked Michelle's swivel chair to face him and he asked her, in a manner that a normal person would use if they were asking a person who was bleeding to death or some other type of serious trauma,

"Are you alright? Do you need a break for a cup of tea?"

Realizing that this was the perfect opportunity to save her aching ears for a little while, Michelle faked another cough, looked into the worried dramatic prince's face, and said,

"Yes, I think we should all take a quick break in order to refresh ourselves before the next slew of 'contestants'".

Kyouya knew that the female host was looking for an excuse to pause the auditions, but since he also needed a break from the noise, he not only overlooked her false act, but he added to her comment by saying,

"I think that a short respite is in order. That way, we can gather our thoughts about all of the 'contestants' we have heard so far, in order to stay fair in our judging" he coolly said as he fixed his glasses.

Hearing the vice president's vote for a break, Hunny didn't wait for Tamaki to agree before he shuffled over to the dark blue curtain to let the twins know not to let another auditioner in for a little bit.

"THAT'S SO TRUE! We need to evaluate all of the magnificent voices that we have heard so far. Oh, our job is such a difficult one!" Tamaki began to ramble as he went to get the tea set from the corner of the room. "In our hands we hold the hopes and dreams of all of the young gentlemen that walk through our doors. How can we choose from all of the wonderfully talented people we have heard so far? And how can we preserve the happiness of all of our hopeful auditioners? Indeed our job is truly a difficult one!"

At that start of his long comment, Michelle looked away from Tamaki because she didn't want her look of 'you've got to be kidding me' to get to the violet eyed boy. She knew if he saw her look, she'd have to explain herself and since she was getting rather comfortable around them she actually ran the risk of telling him how she really felt. Looking to her right to avoid Tamaki, the girl could see a glimpse of Kyouya's reaction to his best friend's ramblings. He also was trying to avoid the host king's glance since the grey eyed boy was rather unpleased with the lack of talent. The female host even caught the slight quizzical look that be-speckled boy gave when Tamaki said something about all of the contestants being talented.

'_Hmm, I think Kyouya agrees with me about the lack of singers so far.'_ The blue eyed girl thought as she was monitoring the dark haired boy's reaction to Tamaki's ramblings. _'He seems to be the type to appreciate talent and to acknowledge when there isn't any' _she thought as she turned to face the excited prince who was in front of her and pouring her a cup of tea at the moment.

"Thank you so much Tamaki-San" the girl said with a sincere smile as she took the cup and saucer of vanilla tea, her favorite, from her friend's hands.

"I can't choose who sang the best so far, can you?" Tamaki stated with a huge smile as he poured Kyouya's cup of earl grey tea.

"I honestly would be unable to do so" Kyouya said, but for a different reason than his best friend alluded to.

Catching his tone and agreeing with the grey eyed boy whole heartedly, Michelle just said "I couldn't agree with Kyouya more" while giving a half smirk that only Kyouya would be able to catch.

"It's rather disappointing isn't it?" Kyouya whispered to the girl on his left, after Tamaki went back to his seat to look over the list of all of the people who they had heard sing that afternoon and to sip on his own cup of chamomile tea.

"It is, I would have sworn that someone would be able to sing well in a group this size" Michelle whispered back, thinking to herself how odd it was that she and Kyouya agreed on something again.

"Well, if we are unable to find a proper partner for your performance, we will have to go back to the original idea of you giving a solo performance" he said, purposefully avoiding the other alternative so he could fluster her a little.

He didn't know why, but Kyouya found himself truly enjoying frustrating Michelle. Rather than thinking that he might slightly be drawn to the girl, Kyouya would always dismiss that reasoning whenever he tried to figure out why he liked to annoy her. _'I only get enjoyment from being a nuisance to her, since she is a nuisance to me'_ he reasoned to himself as he fixed his glasses again before sipping on his cup of tea while waiting on Michelle's reaction to his recent comment.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" the strawberry blonde seethed as she desperately looked over her judging notes, hoping that she'd be able to find someone that she could settle for in case worse came to worse. Seeing all of the TDs (tone deaf), SCRs (screechy), NASs (nasally), and ICs (incapable to carry a tune), Michelle worried that Kyouya would win in the end and she would have to give a solo show.

'_That would go against everything I believe in, please God, let me find someone here that could sing with me'_ Michelle prayed as Tamaki excitedly broke into her thoughts as he asked if he could start the auditions again.

"Yes, I feel much more refreshed now. Thank you so much for the tea" Michelle said to the tall blonde as she winced more than actually smiled at the thought of the torture that she would soon have to deal with again.

"Hikaru, Kaoru, you can begin the interviews again" Tamaki half shouted to the boys who were waiting outside the curtain.

"Got it"

came the twin's unison reply as the lights dimmed again.

'_Hmm, let's see'_ Kyouya thought as he looked down at the list of 'contestants' he had, to get an idea of who was next. '_Gakuen, Yukina is next. He's the sole heir of the Gakuen empire, which specializes in engineering and is responsible for the majority of the world's most elaborate buildings, such as the famous hotel in Dubai and the Ootori's main Tokyo hospital, if I correctly recall' _the grey eyed boy thought as he calculated the value of giving the singing position to Yukina. Slightly smiling as he thought about the benefits that he could gain from a Gakuen, Kyouya looked up when the brown haired boy walked in the room.

Yukina Gakuen is a first year student and in the same class as Hikaru and Kaoru, 1A. The boy is slightly taller than the twins and Michelle, but he is not as tall as Tamaki and Kyouya. He has short, slightly shaggy, chestnut brown hair, rich emerald green eyes, and he always exudes a cheerful personality, even if he usually tends to revert to meekness. Even though she doesn't truly have a favorite customers since that would be rude, Michelle always did find herself enjoying her host time with Yukina. Again, she didn't think of him as anything other than a customer, unlike the host club who she considered to be her friends already, but Michelle did smile a little wider when the green eyed boy came into the room.

"Welcome Yukina!" Tamaki exclaimed as the meek auditioner took his position on the star in the middle of the floor.

"What song will you be performing for us today?" Kyouya asked as he motioned to the list of songs that was in front of the judges table, just in case the 'contestant' got so nervous that he forgot which song he was there to sing.

"Your Song" the young boy said slightly nervously. "If that's ok", he quickly added, showing that he really was worried about the audition.

"Of course it's ok" Michelle said in her overly sweet manner, hoping to ease his fear of singing in front of them.

'_I need to remember to kill Kyouya for adding that song to the list since I'm extremely picky about who sings that song. I didn't even like the professional singers who sang it on the last Cunard cruise that I went on and just hearing all of these boys murder it is more than I can take,'_

she thought as she saw Hunny selecting the track on the audition CD for Yukina to sing along to. It's true that in the real American Idol auditions there is no background music for the contestant to sing to, but since this wasn't a real pop idol audition, but an event geared to customers of the host club, it was unanimously decided that they should make it easier for the auditioners and provide background music for each 'contestant'. Since Tamaki was a judge, the hosts decided that he should prerecord a minute clip of each of the audition songs and put it onto a CD for the 'contestants' to sing along to. Hunny was more than eager to have another job once the auditions started, so he was placed in charge of cuing the music on the Boise system.

Skipping to track number four, the little blonde chirped, with a huge smile on his face "ready when you are" to the nervous brunette.

Taking a deep breath before responding, Yukina said "Alright" and listened carefully to the music, so as not to miss his cue.

'_Here we go again'_ both Kyouya and Michelle thought as they listened to the now familiar short intro to 'Your Song' and got ready for the new 'contestant' to sing his rendition of the song. Michelle closed her sapphire eyes a measure before the lyrics were supposed to begin in order to hide the annoyance that she was expecting to feel when the boy began to sing.

"My gift is my song, and this one's for you"

rang throughout the third music room in a clear and perfect tenor voice exuding from the first year student that stood in front of the judges table. Hearing the quality of the singer's voice, Michelle opened her eyes in amazement, knowing that they'd finally found the winner of the mock 'American Idol' experience.

'_Ewan still sings this better, but I wouldn't mind hearing Yukina sing the full version'_ she thought as she found herself genuinely smiling at her fellow classmate's performance.

'_It's about time we found a person who could sing properly and compliment Michelle's voice well_' Kyouya thought as he placed a small check mark next to Gakuen's name. '_I couldn't have asked for a better, or to be more precise, a more beneficial partnership for me at least'_ he thought as he smirked before looking up to watch the brunette finish his short audition.

'_Now all we have to do is make it through seventy-six more auditions,'_ both Michelle and Kyouya inwardly bemoaned as Tamaki leapt from his chair to applauded the contestant once again.

Hey all! Wow! Two chapters in one week, that's a new record. This was a fun chapter to write and I love how I finally have gotten to a point where I've cemented Michelle, Fr. Kichi, and the hosts enough that I can add new characters. Yuki's the first of a bunch of new characters that I hope to add soon. I won't get too overboard since the hosts and Michelle are the only ones who matter, but I'm going to try to interweave new people to keep the story interesting.

A special thanks to Kitty, Acir Tools, and CrimsonSnowEye, I truly love you all and appreciate your comments, no matter how large or small, they truly fuel me to continue this story :)

CrimsonSnowEye: you are absolutely right, if I wanted a true Simon Cowell figure, I would have cast Hikaru in that position since I know he'd have the perfect snideness and carefree rudeness for the part, but I did need to have Kyouya on the panel, but as you can tell, he's not acting as a true Simon. I love looking at different angles to, so thank you for your input on that! Yes, it won't be a 'no touchy' duet, but Michelle knows that it won't be. Due to her years in the theater, she's planning that it will be just a normal, no strings attached, performance. You'll def be seeing a jealous Kaoru before you'll see a jealous Kyouya, he still is trying to only view her as a nuisance and a mystery. Hmm, that blue eye thing is very interesting thx for sharing that. Whoops! I'm very picky about grammar to, so that 'die' thing is a mistake, thanks for catching it! And I'm glad you enjoyed the overly enthusiastic Japanese boys comment and the ad.

Thank you to all who have signed up for story alerts and so on :) See Ya Soon!


	20. Pompeii? Chapter 20

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor Disney

**Chapter Twenty: Pompeii?**

'_Great, I'm late for the Host Club again! Two consecutive school days I've been late now, Everyone else will already be there and wondering where I am. Kyouya's definitely going to have my head for this! Oh whatever. I honestly don't care and I can handle him if worse comes to worse,_' Michelle thought as she rushed to the familiar music room on that Monday afternoon_._

'_The library system is way harder here' _she thought as she recalled the reason she was so late. '_I know I took too long finding the research books I need for my science project, but it's not fair! I mean, Kyouya has the exact same assignment, but I bet he has his own arsenal of books on the subject at his home, giving him a major unfair advantage. On the last assignment in class I got a better grade than he did and man did that piss him off. I just have to do the same this time cause it's really fun seeing that vain in his calm and cool head bulge with anger'_ the blue eyed girl thought with a giggle as she briefly paused in front of the large maroon doors in order to fix her pale lemon dress and catch her breath.

As she opened the doors, the strawberry blonde found herself stepping back in time.

"Welcome"

the host club elaborately greeted her, complete with flower petals floating out in front of them because the hosts had assumed that she was a customer. Instead of the typical periwinkle uniforms that the boys usually had on, they were all dressed in togas today and surrounded by a false early Mediterranean set. The walls were whitewashed and plainly decorated with a simple black and gold geometric trim along the ceiling. Also, there were ivory marble columns scattered all around the room with pale gold veil-like fabric draping off of them as well as matching simplistic marble benches that had vines wrapped around the legs in order to add to the ambiance. There were potted pomegranate trees in elegant golden urns throughout the room and four large, muse-like statues were framing the grand marble fountain, spewing water from the flute of a musician fawn, that was situated in the middle of the room. Taken aback for a moment since it was the second time in a short period that the room was completely different than usual, Michelle stopped in her tracks at the doorway.

"Oh, it's just Michelle-Sempai" the twins said as they were the first ones to snap out of host mode and started to primp each other to check that their outfits were on properly.

"So let me guess", Michelle started to say to the boys, who were no longer paying attention to her arrival, and already getting desensitized to the grandness of the host club's sets when they decorate, "today's theme is ancient Greece, right?"

As she asked her question, the female host closed the ornate doors behind her and walked over to the dressing room in order to change into the costume that would un-doubtingly be waiting for her in there.

"You are very close my dear Michelle-san, but we are actually honoring in today's cosplay the poor and misfortunate souls who lost their lives at Pompeii" Tamaki stated in an overly melancholic manner, complete with his arms flailing around himself in order to look more tragic.

"Um, Tamaki-san, Pompeii looked nothing like this"

the girl bluntly stated as she stopped walking to the dressing room and turned to face him with a disapproving look on her face. The blue eyed girl's words shot from her mouth like an arrow and struck the ever flamboyant prince to the ground. Not moving from their position or looking up from each other, the twins matched Michelle's bluntness and asked,

"How would you know?" with agitation dripping from their question since they had to do the set-up that day due to her being late.

Slightly annoyed that she had to prove herself and they wouldn't just take her word for it, Michelle stated superiorly as she smugly placed her hands on her hips, a feat that was hard to do in the poufy yellow uniform that she still had on,

"Uh, because I've been there".

At that comment, all eyes turned to face the girl that stood in the center of the room.

"How old are you Mi-chan? Are you a vampire or something?" the tiny Hunny asked her as he inched closer to his nearby cousin while squeezing his beloved light pink bunny tightly.

If anyone else was graceless enough to ask such a stupid question, the female host would have exploded at them, but thanks to Hunny's adorable and innocent charm, Michelle ignored the rudeness of his question. Laughing as she answered, Michelle said,

"no silly, I've just been to the ruins, which are extremely well preserved if I may add".

Her answer broke the tension and Tamaki rushed over to her. "So you've actually seen the infamous volcano, Vesuvius?" he asked Michelle as he grabbed her arms and pulled her closer, until he was mere inches away from her face, while he awaited her answer with great intensity.

Recalling the bad weather on that day of her trip, Michelle shook her head 'no' and said "unfortunately it was so cloudy that day, due to the intermediate showers, that we couldn't see it," ignoring the prince's failure to understand the meaning of 'personal space'.

"When'd you go there?" the twins chimed in as they appeared right behind their Tono, their curiosity was getting to them just like it was effecting to the tall blonde.

"I went there this past summer with my best friend and my…" the strawberry blonde paused before she mentioned the beloved people that she had recently lost forever.

"My parents"

she finished, looking at a blank wall in order to avoid eye contact with her friends for a moment.

"Anyway" she said with a shrug in order to get the host prince off of her and snapping herself out of the sad mode that she was pulling herself into, "when we toured Italy, that was one of our stops."

"Did you go anywhere else on your summer vacation Mi-Chan?" Hunny chipperly asked, catching the way Michelle phrased her answer.

"Yep, it was a three month tour of all of Europe, but it wasn't my first time to the continent" the girl answered, causing a sweet smile from the thought of all of the memories to grace her lips.

This time her answer stirred an air of excitement into the room.

"Where'd you go?" Tamaki anxiously asked, hoping that she'd say that she had visited his beloved France when she was in Europe since he apparently never noticed the grey Disneyland Paris bag that the girl always had it tote.

"Name a country" the female host coyly answered since she had visited almost every country in Europe, including the tiny ones, on her long family voyage.

"I know that we are all interested to hear how well-traveled Michelle is", the smooth and cool voice of Kyouya finally broke in, "but our customers will be arriving at any moment and our theme is incorrect, making it unacceptable for us to receive any guests until we take everything down and change back into our uniforms".

"There's no need to be so drastic Kyouya-san", the strawberry blonde said forming a plan in her mind as she spoke. "All we need to do is make a few moderations in the costumes and we can become Greek gods for the day,"

Michelle said as she walked over to the twins in order to tell them what they needed to grab from the extensive wardrobe, that she still had no clue where it was located. Giving her the same cheesy salute that they always give their 'lord', the twins rushed off to return, basically seconds later, with their arms filled with the items that she requested. Ignoring the speed at which the twins completed the task she asked of them, since she was getting used to that to, Michelle ushered them to drop the items onto the nearby marble bench. As soon as they complied, the girl walked over to the pile and grabbed a golden laurel wreath, a scepter with a sun on it, and a deep red cape with sun shaped fasteners. Walking over to the official leader of the club, the girl stated,

"Let's start with you Tamaki. You will be Apollo. He was the sun god, but he was very well known as a great supporter of the arts. In short, you will be you".

Placing the wreath on his head, which he lowered for her since we was a little taller than she was, the tall blonde thanked her and in return received a smile from her lips. After making sure that he understood his role, Michelle then handed the other props to the prince before walking back to the pile. Tamaki turned around as he excitedly put on his remaining items while he walked back to his sit in the corner, trying to figure out how to appeal to his customers as the great Apollo.

"Next will be Hunny-Sempai"

Michelle said as she reached out to grab a royal purple cloak, a bunch of fake grapes, a golden goblet, and another golden laurel wreath. The little senior was so excited to receive his role that he met the female host at the prop covered marble bench. Being around the little honey haired boy it was almost impossible not to smile due to his lighthearted and youthful demeanor and Michelle herself wasn't fully immune to his boyish charms. Even though she didn't realize it, one of the reasons that being around Hunny always made her smile was because he reminded her of all of the kids that she was always around at her home parish in America. Unlike most teens her age, the blue eyed girl absolutely loved hanging out with the children at her church and because they could tell that she genuinely liked being around them, they all flocked to her.

"You will be the perfect Bacchus" the girl said with a smile as she easily crowned the boy in front of her. "He was the god of food, drink, and parties and…" she paused for a slight dramatic effect, "he also loved eating sweets" she finished as Hunny took his props and smiled even wider at his role.

"Wasn't he a bit taller?"

Kyouya coolly and snidely interrupted the girl, still annoyed that Michelle dismissed his 'suggestion' to forget about role playing for the day. Not only didn't the grey eyed boy like someone disagreeing with him, but he was also worried that her suggestion wouldn't work with the soon approaching customers.

'_After all, she's never picked out a theme before and this is extremely last minute'_ he thought as he fixed his glasses and waited for her response; '_if this fails, she will cost the host club money and even worse, we will risk the chance of losing customers'._

Seeing that Hunny was saddened that he might not be able to play Bacchus, a role that he for some reason really was excited about playing, Mori walked over to comfort his beloved cousin. Before he made it over to Hunny, Michelle replied to her antagonist's question, mimicking his superior tone,

"While he is more commonly shown as a taller god, I've seen a statue of him in Munich where he was portrayed as young boy and he actually looked surprisingly like Hunny-Sempai,"

she finished with a comforting smile aimed at the little boy in front of her. Happy that he got to keep his props and role, Hunny skipped over to the bench area that Mori had just walked away from. Seeing that he had no reason to worry about his cousin, the tall ebony haired boy slightly smiled at the girl who seemed to actually care that his cousin was disheartened at Kyouya's remark. Impressed that Michelle was able to dispute him again, even though it didn't please him at all, Kyouya jotted in his notebook that the girl has also been to Germany.

'_She is well traveled for an American and she hinted that she's been to many other countries. Michelle must indeed come from a well-off family as I noted from her manners and level of interaction. Then why can't I find anything about her?'_ the dark haired boy thought as he found his way back to his annoyance in regards to the lack of information on Michelle.

Noticing that Mori was the closest to her, the strawberry blonde dug around in the slowly diminishing pile that was still in front of her. Signaling at the tall, silent boy in order to get him to come closer to her, the blue eyed girl said,

"Mori-Sempai, I think you'd be the perfect Ares. Even though you are too peaceful to truly be the god of war, I really think that the girls would love to see you in full military garb, that is if you don't object to the implication".

Glad that she was actually asking for his approval, rather than risking offending him, and not minding the stereotype anyway, Mori said with no emotion in his voice, but a half smile on his face,

"I don't mind".

With that, Michelle handed the tall senior a spear, leather belt, red cloak, and a traditional Spartan helmet, complete with the red Mohawk-like top. Turning to the twins who were being surprisingly patient at the moment, the female host said,

"I'm afraid that there are no Greek gods who are twins and unlike the Norwegians who have Loki, the Greeks had no god of mischief. The best I can do is offer either Zeus, Hades, or Poseidon since they were all brothers".

Not wanting to take Zeus (one of the few Greek gods they knew of) since they didn't want a role that was higher than their Tono, Tamaki, the twins opted for the other two.

"Alrighty then, Hikaru, since your voice has 5% more malice than Kaoru's, you will be Hades, the god of the dead"

the girl stated bluntly, handing the now annoyed Hikaru a dark blue cape, a bone scepter, and a golden Laurel wreath. While his brother was scowling at the girl's remark, Kaoru started bend over with laughter and was about to make a comment when Michelle plopped his silver trident, sea foam green cloak, and golden Laurel wreath into his hands.

"That means you will be Poseidon then, he was the god of the sea and all things water"

she said as she shooed them away before they could complain or disagree with her, so she could get Kyouya's pile of props ready.

"So who do I play in your Greek god theme?"

Kyouya asked with a disinterested voice, even though he was curious to see what the girl had planned for him.

"You will be the messenger god, Hermes"

Michelle said as she picked up the winged sandals, double serpent staff, and winged head band to bring over to the seated boy, knowing that he wasn't about to get up in order to retrieve the items himself. Looking at her, internally quizzical of the assignment, Kyouya tried to figure out why she cast him with such a role. Knowing Kyouya well enough by now, Michelle explained,

"it's perfect for you since you are the most connected, you have a file on everyone, and you for the most part act as the idea giver who whispers in the ears of others, leaving them to get the credit in the end" the female host finished smiling smugly as she somewhat roughly placed the head band onto the raven locks on his head.

Smirking as he took the other props, the grey-eyed boy asked, "And who pray tell will you be?" ignoring her perfect interpretation of him.

"Why Athena, the goddess of wisdom of course" the girl said as her sapphire eyes twinkled while she had a joking and lighthearted lilt in her voice.

'_She really is unusual'_ Kyouya thought when he heard her choice_. 'Most girls would want to proclaim themselves as Aphrodite'._

Voicing Kyouya's comment for him, the twins looked at Michelle when she said who she'd play and Hikaru asked, "why not Aphrodite?"

Kaoru spoke up as well and said, "yeah, isn't she the more popular goddess?" since even he and his brother knew about her.

"Nah", Michelle began as she explained her choice to her friends while digging in the pile for her props. "Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty and that's too shallow of a 'power' or whatnot. I'd rather be known for my intelligence and wisdom than for the way that I look"

she said with a slight look of annoyance on her face as she thought about all the times she's had to battle the 'dumb blonde' stereotype due to her natural hair color.

"Besides, I'm not pretty enough to play her"

she threw in, ducking into the dressing room, so her fellow club members couldn't disagree with her statement. She knew the boys well enough that they would have said something contrary to her statement about her looks, but due to her perfection complex, she wouldn't have believed anything they said and would have thought they were just being kind friends,

'_so why bother allow such an annoyance to happen to begin with?'_

Everyone felt a small sting when the strawberry blonde said that, minus Kyouya that is, but Kaoru was completely thrown off by Michelle's most recent comment.

'_But, she's the only girl who I would consider to be the goddess of beauty_'

he thought as he stared at the dressing room curtain that was still moving due to the blue eyed girl's pulling it back. '_Every day it's like I find something new about her'_ the redhead continued to think as he put his cape on. '_She always seems so happy when we get to hang out together, especially since we've gotten closer in the last couple of weeks, but then she goes and says something that's really melancholic, like not being pretty enough to play the goddess of beauty. I wish that I could really be there for her, but I don't know how._'

Before he could think anymore about Michelle, Hikaru snapped him back to reality and the two worked on their 'twincest' skit. All of the hosts were now fully equipped with their Grecian god props and were ready for the customers that were due in any minute.

'_I hope that this theme works'_ Michelle thought as she placed the golden helmet upon her head. '_I know that if it flops Kyouya's going to find some stupid way to fine me for its failure. At least my idea is more correct than the previous one, I mean that was idiotic, but I don't think he'll care about accuracy over profit. The rich bastard… Oh well, all I can do is pray now' _she thought as the strawberry blonde heard the first customer come through the host club's doors.

Hey All! I am SOOOOO sorry that it took me so long to post this, but this chapter took forever to write. As an apology, I will be posting another chapter, which will be my first foray into actual host time, extremely soon. Acir Tools: the first suggestion of yours might happen, but it will be way later in the story if it does, but I'm really sorry that I don't think that I could incorporate your second one. Thank you once again for all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on and please let me know what you guys think :) I hope you all are enjoying this story as much as I am and I'll See Ya Soon!


	21. Host Time on Mount Olympus Chapter 21

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Twenty-One: Host Time on Mount Olympus**

"Tamaki, I heard that you are playing Apollo today" a frequent customer of the host club's prince shyly said as she rested in a nestled position in the arms of the tall blonde boy.

"You heard correctly my sweet princess. Unfortunately I'm not truly Apollo, for if I was" he started as he turned the ebony haired young lady's face towards his. "I would make it so the sun would shine on you alone a little bit brighter, so the whole world would marvel in your beauty as I do" he finished as he drew her closer and brushed aside a strand of hair that fell in front of her eyes.

Blushing at his words, the girl turned her face slightly and swooned "Oh, Tamaki" as she reveled in her one on one time with her designated host.

"So who are you two?" a brunette girl from a nearby marble bench asked the two robed twins in front of her and her girlfriend as she took a small sip from her cup of tea.

"I'm Hades, the god of the underworld, and Kaoru is Poseidon, the god of the sea" Hikaru said with a laugh.

"I just think it's hilarious that the role of the sea god was given to this goof ball since he can barely swim" the older twin continued to say snidely as he motioned to the boy sitting next to him. "You should see him flopping around in the water whenever we go to the beach as he tries to 'swim'" he said adding air quotes to the final word.

"Oh Hikaru, you're so mean" the younger brother piped in, acting as if his feelings were truly and deeply hurt by his brother's mean comment. "I'm so embarrassed that you told them that I can't swim" Kaoru said as he shyed away from his brother.

"Kaoru, I'm so sorry" Hikaru said as he drew his retreating brother closer to himself and very much closer than a sibling should. "I only mentioned it since I was jealous that you were given a better role. That was so rude of me" the older boy said as he drew his sibling even closer.

"Can you forgive me?"

he said placing his hand under Kaoru's chin and lifting the saddened boy's face to meet his. Swooning at the twincest routine, the two girls across the way from them were completely eating up the overly dramatic performance in front of them.

"Eat, drink, and be merry!"

piped in the bubbly voice of Hunny, coming from another nearby sectioned area. He was truly playing his role of Bacchus to a hilt and was excitedly serving his customers cake and tea.

"Since I'm the god of food and fun today, cakes and tea for everyone!"

he said as if they didn't always serve tea and sweets for the customers. The girls who were sitting with him thought it was completely adorable the way he was acting and in order to keep his perkiness up, they acted as if tea and cakes were a true specialty. After Hunny poured the third girl's cup of tea, Mori approached the table in his warrior outfit.

"Hey Takashi!"

Hunny excitedly called out as he looked up from the pot of tea in his hands. Putting it down, the little senior scurried over to his tall cousin and quickly climbed onto his shoulders.

"Doesn't he look good as Ares, the god of war?"

the little boy chirped from his perch on Mori's broad shoulders. Agreeing with his comment, the girls nodded their heads eagerly as they eyed the warrior garb that seemed to fit so perfectly with the tall senior's build.

"He's lucky since I couldn't pull it off. See, it just looks silly on me"

he stated as he took Mori's helmet off of him and proceeded to place it upon his own head. Now the ornate helmet was way too big for Hunny's little head and it just slumped over the honey haired boy's eyes as soon as he removed his hands. However, the sight of such a big helmet on their host's head pushed the girls into a cuteness overload and they squealed at the sight of the little host.

"I'm guessing that you are Athena, goddess of wisdom, right?"

a blonde boy asked the female host who was sitting in front of him in her own sectioned off area for her and her guests. Joking about the elaborate and obvious props that gave her character away, such as the golden helmet (which was currently next to her on the seat), spear, golden sandals, and large shield with an owl on it, Michelle said

"Yes I am. But, how did you guess? I mean, the boys wouldn't let me get a real owl for my shoulder" she mentioned as she coyly laughed.

Her customer laughed an easy and carefree laugh along with her as she continued on to say with a soft smile, "I've always admired the Greeks for choosing a woman to be their goddess of wisdom and she's the perfect personification of my position here in the club since I love being able to help people with my small words of wisdom in regard to their problems."

"That's very true" the boy said as he took a sip from his own cup of tea before placing on the table in front of him, since he had just received comforting words from her but a few moments ago, concerning his current family stress related problems, and was now completely calmed about his situation.

"In fact," the blonde boy said as he scanned the room, "everyone seems to be perfectly cast today".

Smiling at that comment since she saw that Kyouya was now approaching the strawberry blonde's area and must of heard the wonderful praise from her guest, Michelle simply said "I thought so to" with a smug smile upon her face.

Taking the boy's cue, since the shadow king did in fact hear the praising comment, Kyouya approached the two and said,

"Then due to my role as Hermes, the messenger god, I am here to relay a message to Athena, who in all of her wisdom seemed to have forgotten a very special job."

With these words, he pulled an ornately decorated ticket out of his character's messenger bag and handed it to Michelle with a slight bow, as if to mockingly be humble. Not wanting to seem as if she wasn't wise enough to be the goddess of wisdom and not appreciating his attitude towards her in front of her customer, the female host responded to the be-speckled boy by saying

"I could never forget such an important job as presenting this special ticket to Usuni, but if I had taken it, you wouldn't have been able to fulfill your role as the messenger god and deliver it to me."

As she took piece of paper from the 'messenger god's' hand, the girl pompously said with a shooing flick of the wrist,

"thank you my dear Hermes, now be on your way so I can carry out the task you have given me".

Inwardly calculating how to get back at the smug blue eyed girl who dared to act superior to him, Kyouya mockingly bowed again and retreated back to his table and beloved pineapple laptop. Realizing that she would definitely pay for her pretentious dismissal, Michelle quickly shoved that thought from her mind and instead focused on the task at hand to keep from fretting too much.

"As I am well aware, I know that here in Japan you celebrate St. Valentine's Day a bit differently than we do in America. Instead of the boys giving gifts on that day, they receive them from the girls who care the most about them. For that reason, I am quite glad that I am able to present my holiday gift, while showing my appreciation to my most beloved customers, by inviting you to a special St. Valentine's Day performance" the strawberry blonde said as she regally handed the ornate letter to the now blushing boy in front of her.

"Really? You are having a special 'love' show?" Usuni asked the goddess Athena quietly while his face turned another shade of red.

Thinking how happy she was that the girl didn't have to sing the love songs solo, since her customer was responding the way she was expecting them to react at the show, Michelle politely said,

"yes. We are presenting this one-time specialty show for the holiday. In fact, the winner of the auditions that were recently held will be my singing partner for the performance".

As she flashed her signature dazzling smile to him, fighting back the tinge of nausea that was coming up her throat at the words that she had to use to describe the event, Usuni was overwhelmed for a few seconds before her words fully registered in his mind. Calming down to the state he was in before he received the letter that he was holding in his hands like it was his most precious possession, the blonde boy said coolly, in an attempt to regain his composure,

"Oh yeah, I remember hearing about those auditions. Have you decided who won yet?'

"Yes we have come to an agreement on the winner, though it was rather hard, even with all of my Athenian wisdom"

Michelle joked, truly gladdened that the mood between her and her customer had become normal again. Laughing at her joke, the two continues with their normal conversation while Kyouya typed away on his laptop, planning how to get even with the girl who just treated him so smugly, and even worse, in front of a customer.

'_Aha'_,

he thought as the light from his computer's screen perfectly glared across his glasses, creating a sinister looking streak,

'_I know exactly what to do'_.

Hey guys! I'm back! Toldja I'd release something quickly as an apology. Keep in mind however that when school starts again next week, it will take me a while between releases. Ok, now this chapter was really short, but I like doing fillers every once and a while to make the story more believable. It was really fun writing in 'host time', even though it was extremely difficult lol. Thank you again for all those who have added me as 'fav author'. 'fav story', signing up for 'story alerts', and of course a special thank you to all who have left a comment! 

Thank you soooo much again for all your support and I'll see ya'll soon :)


	22. Practice Makes Perfect Chapter 22

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own the rights to any of the songs that are listed.

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Practice Makes Perfect**

It was now the Saturday of the first official rehearsal for the Valentine's Performance and the practice session was currently well underway. As expected of any host club rehearsal, the beautiful, professional quality music of Tamaki could be heard from outside of the closed, elegant maroon doors.

"Alright, that's it! It's time for a break. My legs are killing me!"

loudly interjected a tired first year student, as he caused Tamaki to abruptly stop playing the song that the brunette and strawberry blonde were dancing to.

"I never thought that winning the audition meant that I'd have to dance on top of singing,"

stated Yuki, Michelle's current partner for the upcoming Valentine's Performance, as he collapsed down to the currently bare music room's floor since all of the plush couches had been pushed aside to give the two more room to dance.

"Don't look at me, I had no idea that _someone _was going to make us dance either,"

Michelle replied as she shot daggers at the smug be-speckled boy in the corner who was looking down at his work in order to purposefully avoid her glare. It's not that she couldn't dance, in fact she belonged to an ethnic dance group back in the States, and she honestly enjoyed dancing as a hobby, but it was the reason that they were dancing that thoroughly annoyed the blue eyed girl. Kyouya was making the duet dance as her 'punishment' for acting pretentious towards him in front of a customer during their Greek gods cosplay day earlier in the week.

In short, all of the dancing routines were added just to spite her, and she knew it.

Besides knowing that the added element was included in the performance as Kyouya's attempt to show his ability to control her against her will, it also didn't help Michelle's already unfavorable attitude towards dancing that it was making the performance uncomfortable for her customer/partner Yuki.

"That's fine, but when we pick it up again," started the kind voice of the red headed newcomer in the music room, "Yuki, follow Michelle's lead. She knows what to do and she has the proper timing down".

"Yes Asagi" Yuki half muttered to the tall, brown eyed boy who was standing in front of him as the younger boy rubbed his aching legs.

The third year student who was addressing Yuki is Asagi Kaede, the president of Ouran Academy's ballroom dance club and personally responsible for more than half of his club's trophies over the past two years. The red head recently found himself roped into being the choreographer of the host club's Valentine's show by none other than the host club's vice president. However, instead of using blackmail or some other like tactic, tactics that the demon king currently reserved solely for the blue eyed bane of his existence, Kyouya got the ballroom champion to agree to choreograph the show by promising free first aid equipment for Asagi and his ballroom club members.

'_It's quite fortuitous that dancing can be a very dangerous activity' _the grey eyed boy thought as he adjusted his glasses to properly read the expense chart that was on his laptop's screen at the moment. '_And it helps when one's family is the elite supplier of medical supplies in Asia and Europe'_ he continued with a small smirk, thinking about how easy it was for him to manipulate the people around him, with one glaring exception.

'_Michelle fights with me all the way on everything, but in the end I always win… Until I hit that wall of secrets,'_

he thought while now scowling about his inability to control everyone around him with an iron fist. Immersing himself in his work to take his mind off of Michelle, Kyouya ignored what was going on with the three performers and their dance instructor.

"You know what?" exclaimed Asagi after giving the two dancers a chance to catch their breath a little, "Yuki, you watch Michelle and me"

the red head said to the lounging boy as he extended his hand out for the girl who was now sitting next to her aching partner.

"Since you aren't getting the beats when I tell you, I'll just show you how you should be dancing, ok? Tamaki, from the top of 'Can I Have This Dance' please"

he stated as he signaled with a wave of his right hand to the pianist who was eagerly awaiting to play his beloved instrument again. With Michelle and Asagi in their starting position and waiting for the music to begin, the brown eyed senior turned to the sitting boy once more and stated more than asked,

"Yuki, I can't sing, so just sing your part and I'll dance it, deal?"

Willing to do anything as long as he could do it sitting, the emerald eye boy nodded his head as the music began.

"Take my hand, take a breath, pull me close and take one step"

sang the crystal-clear voice of Michelle as she and her dancing instructor started the routine. As the song progressed, the two dancers seemed to just effortlessly glide across the club room's cleared floor.

'_Wow, they really look like they're on skates or something_!' thought the amazed Yuki, whose jaw was now subconsciously open in awe, that is when he wasn't singing his part. '_I really have to work on my timing if I want to even look a tenth as good as they do… great, no pressure'_.

Noticing out of the corner of his eye that the brunette boy on the floor was seemingly mesmerized by the performance that was going on behind the raven haired boy's back, Kyouya turned away from his laptop to watch the two dancers.

'_Hmm, it seems as if my 'punishment' can become another level of quality entertainment for the customers'_

he thought while the wheels were turning again in his dark mind, trying to think of a way to make this newfound talent of Michelle's profitable for him, yet again. Turning back to his work, Kyouya pulled up the performance list and started altering it before the final chord was played by his best friend.

"BRAVA MICHELLE-SAN AND ASAGI-SEMPAI!"

loudly exclaimed Tamaki as he leapt from his piano bench to congratulate his two friends. Even though he had just recently met Asagi, Tamaki's outgoing personality made every new acquaintance one of his friends. However, there is a special reserved area in his mind for those who are closest to him, like Michelle, and it is only those people who get categorized in his mind as a family member.

With his dancing skills now a part of his natural reflexes, thanks to many years of painstaking practice, the brown eyed boy ducked away from the energetic blonde as he approached the two, leaving Michelle to be the only one that Tamaki enveloped in one of his crushing hugs.

"Thanks Tamaki" the smushed girl managed to squeeze out, "but once again you are hugging me a little too tightly".

Reacting to her comment, even though they were working on the costumes in a side room, clear across the way, the two twins rushed over to their friend's aid.

"I thought we told you not to crush Michelle-Sempai like that you pervert" Hikaru said as he shoved Tamaki off of the strawberry blonde.

Catching her as she took a step back after being freed from the tall blonde's grasp so quickly that she staggered because of it, Kaoru spoke up and said "yeah, if you keep squeezing her like that you're bound to hurt her!"

"Guys, it's ok!"

Michelle said with a tinge of annoyance as she bounced back up and regained her composer, "I'm not a fragile china doll that will break when you touch it and I can take care of myself when it comes to dealing with this bubble head, thank you very much".

"But, but, but!"

the now flustered Tamaki stuttered, unsure whether to respond to the twins or to the girl. Seeing the confusion that was now going on in front of them, Asagi and Yuki figured that this was the best time for the two of them to finish with practice for the day and quietly slipped out of the music room.

"Oh great job you guys" the blue eyed girl stated exasperatly at the bickering trio in front of her as she flicked her wrist to the area that her performance partners were standing in a moment ago, "you went and scared Yuki and Asagi-Sempai away".

"But, but, but"

repeated the flustered and now confused Tamaki as his eyes darted all around the room to see if Michelle was right. Seeing that practice was now apparently over for the day and that it was due to his fault, the host club's prince went into his sulking corner and started to mopingly trace figures on the floor. Giving an eye roll before attempting to go over and snap Tamaki out of his self-pity moment, Michelle first fixed her long hair into a manageable messy bun because she was getting hot from all of the dancing of the last hour. Before she had a chance to even take one step towards the dejected prince after making herself comfortable, the strawberry blonde heard Hikaru mutter,

"I'm glad they left. Outsiders don't belong in here".

As soon as she heard her friend say such cruel words, Michelle whipped around to face the twins head on.

"Hey Hikaru, first of all Asagi-Sempai and Yuki are only here for this one performance" the girl said in a semi-scolding manner, but veering more on a genteel way of speaking, knowing that it was the only way to get through to the stubborn twin. "And Second of all, they are not outsiders, but newbies to the club, just like I am" she stated as she put her hand on the now pouting older red head's shoulder in front of her.

"We know that" the nearby twin said in his brother's defense and slightly pouting himself, more due to jealousy then his brother, "but we don't allow just anyone into our group and we don't like it when people think they can just burst in here".

"Yeah, and to put it simply, we don't like how the two of them get to spend more time with you then we do" the twins chorused together as they sent their bratty pouts directly at the girl in front of them.

"Ha ha ha ha ha" Michelle chuckled at the absurd concept that the two boys in front of her concocted. "You guys are so silly" she said as she placed her left hand on Kaoru's shoulder as well.

"You guys are my closest friends, all of the host club members are, and nothing, nor anyone will get in the way of that" the blue eyed girl said with her dazzling smile as she turned around to invite Tamaki over to where the three of them were standing.

"Besides, hasn't anyone told you that love is meant to be shared? In fact…" Michelle started to say as she backed away from the three boys now in front of her and began to sing:

"Everybody is born to care, it's something we were meant to share, not to keep to ourselves all alone. If we make room for someone new, doesn't mean that there's less for you, only means that our circle has grown. Love knows, love grows, bigger than before, in your heart, there's always more. It's magic, the more you give it away, the more love, comes back to you, everyday. You are my true friends and here I am home, always forever wherever we go. So loves knows, love grows bigger than before. In your heart, there's always more, always more."

While Michelle was singing the message to her friends, Tamaki rushed over to the piano and started to plunk out the chords causing the girl to begin to really immerse herself in the song as she played around with the twins and even ended up dancing with them. Conveniently during her impromptu song, Hunny and Mori wandered into the room since Mori's kendo practice was finally finished. As soon as Hunny entered the room to find his friends singing and dancing, he rushed right over to the twins and Michelle and joined right in to the festivities. After the song was over, the room was filled with the laughter and smiles of Hunny, Kaoru, Hikaru, Tamaki, and Michelle, so much so that Mori himself broke his stoic look to give a half smile. The only one seemingly unmoved and unaffected by the female host club member's message was Kyouya who never looked up from his laptop the entire time, except to smirk at the group when Michelle first broke into song.

'_She must really feel comfortable here to do something as ridiculous as break into song whenever she feels like it. She does belong with those morons'_ the grey eyed boy snidely thought as he blocked out the ruckus while it was going on.

"Wait, you said that we are your closest friends, right?" Kaoru said to the strawberry blonde who had finally caught her breath from laughing so much.

"Yeah, you guys really are" she said with a sweet and sincere smile. "Ever since I meet you guys, you have been looking out for me and taking care of me, as well as giving me opportunities to express who I am, without any fear of judgment. So, yeah, that makes you guys my close friends, if that's ok" the girl added with a coy look in her eyes that only the currently attentive Kyouya caught.

She did fully mean those words, but at this moment, she didn't know how much she really meant it. Those boys really did help her through one of the toughest times that anyone could go through, the loss of a person's parents and the complete segregation from a person's lifestyle and friends. It's true, if she didn't find her friends in the host club and a home among them, her life would be very different and it's unclear if she would have ever made it past such a traumatic experience, even with her being as strong as she is. Also, without her realizing it, she had somehow lost her desire for constant perfection when it was just the seven of them. When she was in 'interaction' mode around the other students of Ouran or with the parishioners of her church she still wanted them to think that she had no flaws, but among her friends in the host club, she honestly didn't care about seeming perfect.

She knew she could just be herself with the hosts.

Well, as much of herself as she felt comfortable being without destroying her Witness Protection cover story.

"Of course it's ok Mi-Chan!"

exclaimed the tiny senior as he rushed forward and jumped up into Michelle's arms to give her a huge hug. Smiling at the honey blonde kid in her embrace, Michelle soaked in the welcoming atmosphere that filled the room and thanked God once again for her newfound friendship with the host club. Jolting her out of her blissful moment as soon as she let go of Hunny, the strawberry blonde soon found Hikaru leaning on her right shoulder with a devilish look in his eye.

"If we are your closest friends" he softly stated in her ear,

"then we should go to your house sometime and play there, agree?" added Kaoru copying his brother and hanging onto Michelle's left shoulder.

Hearing mention of the host club possibly gaining entrance into his annoyance's house, Kyouya looked up from his laptop and intensely looked over to the other members who were now waiting on Michelle's answer. The female host was caught off guard at the moment, but it wasn't due to the manner in which she was asked, but rather what she was asked. Pulling herself together and forming yet another lie to feed to the people whom she now cared the most about in Japan, Michelle replied,

"I'm sorry but I don't think that can happen. It's not that I don't want you guys to come over…"

"Then what is it?" the cool voice of Kyouya interrupted the blue eyed girl's answer.

Glaring at her antagonist, the girl continued and said "it's my aunt and uncle." Now facing the others gathered around her, Michelle said "you see, they are very self-conscientious of the fact that they are not wealthy people and you would truly embarrass them by your presence in their house. Since we are friends, you guys wouldn't want to make my family feel badly on purpose, would you?"

the girl said batting her long lashes over her now semi-puppy dog eyes, hoping that she would not only get them to agree not to go to her house now, but that she could get them to never ask again. Being a master manipulator, just like her opponent, Michelle got the reaction that she was aiming for.

"OF COURSE NOT!"

Tamaki shouted with disgust at the thought that he and his friends would purposefully alienate one of his friend's family members. "We understand my poor poor Michelle" the energetic blonde said to the girl as he grasped both of her arms in order to stare her in the face. "We would never want to offend the family of our dear Michelle-san! Oh, the traps and pratfalls of being poor" Tamaki continued as he let go of Michelle's arms and began to flail his own around. "Imagine, being so destitute that the mere idea of entertaining company can be thought of as a faux paus! Oh, that people must live in such dire situations…" the prince babbled on as he walked away in order to gain more space to make more dramatic movements.

Taking this as her cue to leave and wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible now, Michelle said goodbye to her friends, stating that she had tons of homework to do, and headed for the familiar gilded doors_._

'_Humph, knowing that airhead, now it will be impossible for me to bring up the idea of going to her house_' the raven haired boy thought as he watched his best friend continuing his current rant. _'She played that quite well again'_ Kyouya thought with a slight tinge of admiration as he turned back to his beloved pineapple laptop in order to finish his alterations to the performance list.

'_Asagi surely will have no objections to this new list and will in fact embrace it, as I am sure Yuki will. I can use that to my advantage in getting Michelle to agree to the modifications, even though she doesn't have much choice in the matter anyway'_ the shadow prince smirked as he fixed his glasses and pressed the save button on his list.

Hey all!

I received another 'story alert' and between that and the fact that I had an easy homework load the first week of school, I was inspired to finish/publish this chapter. It's another filler chapter, but it does introduce yet another character to my Ouran universe. The next character is an extremely pivotal one, so tune in to meet him next chapter. Thank you to all who have signed up for story alerts and so on, you guys really inspire me to continue with the story, and I hope you are all enjoying this story as much as I am :)

See Ya Soon!


	23. Pickpocket Alert! Chapter 23

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Twenty-Three: Pickpocket Alert!**

'_Gah! Today just isn't my day now is it?'_

Michelle thought as she accidentally slammed the door to the rectory way too hard as she rushed out of the simple building with her laptop clasped in her hand.

"Sorry Father" she shouted back over her shoulder as the strawberry blonde quickly shoved her laptop into her Disneyland Paris messenger bag while she took the stairs two at a time as she rushed back to her school.

'_First I overslept, causing me to forget everything that I needed, meaning that I left my laptop at home, even though I desperately need it to take notes on some of the science books the school library won't let take out of the building, then I forgot to study for the quiz that we had in Japanese history this morning, then Tamaki clumsily spilt his consume on my dress during lunch leaving a huge stain of the front, after that I tripped over something that the twins failed to pick up during host club hours, meaning that I had twenty different people run to my aid when I fell, adding to my embarrassment_' fumed the frustrated girl as she ranted to herself while she quickly approached the major intersection on her route to school.

'_And now, thanks to that jerk Kyouya, all of the rehearsals have tripled in length, meaning I have to learn new songs, new routines, and time a whole slew of new costume changes, all because I can dance well. It's not my fault my parents had me join an ethnic dance group when I was younger…'_

The performance list that was recently modified by Kyouya is now as follows:

Every Story is a Love Story—Aida {Michelle}

A Whole New World—Aladdin {Duet}

The Sweetest Sound—Cinderella {Yuki}

So This is Love/Ten Minutes Ago Medley—Cinderella {Duet}

Hopelessly Devoted to You—Grease {Michelle}

For the 1st Time—Tarzan {Duet}

My Heart Will Go On—Titanic {Tamaki}

Something About Us—Clay Aiken {Michelle}

We Could Be in Love—Lea Solonga {Duet}

Can I Have This Dance—High School Musical 3 {Duet}

Somewhere Out There—An American Tail {Tamaki}

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend—Moulin Rouge version {Michelle}

Elephant Love Medley—Moulin Rouge {Duet}

El Tango de Roxanne—Moulin Rouge {Yuki, Kaoru, Michelle, and Asagi}

All I Ask of You—Phantom of the Opera {Duet}

At the Beginning—Anastasia {Duet}

'_With all that extra rehearsal time, I definitely won't be able to help out around the church until the show is over and I'll lose so much sleep 'cause Lord only knows when I finally can hit my textbooks at night. And…_' she frustratedly thought as she looked at her piano watch, '_Now I'm late for practice, which means that he's going to keep us all later thanks to my forgetfulness this morning. Shit… And now, the stupid light is red, meaning I'm going to be here forever thanks to rush hour' _the girl thought as she screeched to a halt at the empty corner.

Thinking about all the ways that she wished she could kill/physically hurt the grey eyed shadow king in order to pass her time, Michelle seemed to be unaware of her surroundings again. However, since her nightmare situation at the Zoo, the strawberry blonde knew better than to ever let her defenses down again. Not knowing that he was currently targeting a hyper-aware person, a small figure crept out from around the corner building and lurched towards the grey messenger bag that hung over Michelle's shoulder. As the tiny hand reached out silently and began to open the flap, his target reacted with lightning speed and locked his wrist in her tight grasp. Having the perpetrator in her hands, Michelle whipped around to face the thief with a fixed scowl on her face in order to intimidate whomever she was holding onto. To her great surprise, the blue eyed girl found out that she was clasping onto the hand of a little boy who looked roughly about eight years old. Stunned for a moment at the age of her assailant, the little black haired boy squirmed in a vain attempt to free himself from Michelle's shockingly tight grasp.

Snapping out of her astonishment, Michelle barked at the boy, "Just what do you think you were doing, huh?"

She knelt down on one knee in front of the boy so she could stare face to face at the little thief. The whole time Michelle was looking at the little boy, his eyes were downcast and he was staring at the ground, making it seem as if he wasn't listening to her as he continued with his vain attempt to free himself. With her free hand, the girl put her hand under his chin and forced him to look at her when she restated her question again.

"Well, did you think that you'd just stick your hands in someone else's bag and take whatever you wanted?" the girl said with such an intensity that the little boy within her grasp now stopped squirming and started to tremble.

At the sudden change in the brown eyed boy's demeanor, Michelle's heart melted. Looking at the face of the boy who now was beginning to cry, the girl noticed an alarming feature on the young boy's face, a large bruise around his right eye. Releasing her killer grasp on the poor boy's wrist, Michelle repositioned her hands gently on the boy's shoulders.

"Hey, hey" she as she seamlessly slipped into her sweet, host club voice, "I didn't mean to make you cry. You just caught me off guard, I mean, you know that it's a crime to steal, don't you?"

Not moving from his spot because he was still trembling too much, all the little boy could do was nod his head 'yes' to the girl's question.

'_Crap, his reaction to my shouting and my touch, along with this huge bruise on his face are all classic signs of abuse_' the girl thought as she lovingly brushed aside the ebony strands that were in front of the little boy's face.

"Ok, well you really shouldn't be stealing. I'm sorry for scaring you though" Michelle said as gently and sweetly as she could, hoping to get the trust of the boy in front of her. "Can we try this again?" she said sweetly as she knelt on both knees in an attempt to make her body posture more natural and less intimidating, "my name is Michelle, what's yours?"

Feeling safe enough to raise his hands to wipe his tears, the little boy slowly looked into the kind eyes of the girl who had now totally released him.

"I I ..I'm… I'm… my name is Kurama" a fragile and wavering voice escaped from the little boy as took a deep sniff in.

With her trademark dazzling smile, Michelle said "it's nice to meet you Kurama. Are you hungry?"

Hesitating for a moment before he responded, Kurama nodded his head once again as he curiously watched Michelle reach into her bag. Pulling out a packet of pockys that Tamaki gave to her as some sort of "commoner's treat apology" for ruining her uniform, the strawberry blonde kindly offered it to the little brown eyed boy. Michelle smiled as she saw his eyes widen at the sight of the treat. Kurama cautiously snatched the chocolaty dessert from the girl's hand and quickly opened the packet to munch on one.

"Do you see that building right over there?" Michelle asked the now content little boy as she pointed at Heavenly Savior Church and continued by saying, "that's where I live. If you ever want something to eat, snacks or real food, or if you ever want someone to talk to or just hang out with, please come and visit me. I promise I'll always have some pocky on hand, waiting just for you" she said looking back at Kurama.

"Can they be strawberry flavored?" the black haired boy meekly questioned after a moment of pondering the girl's offer.

Laughing softly at the little boy's question, Michelle said "of course! Will you come and see me sometime then?"

The little boy paused again for a moment, reached into the packet of pocky, started to munch on his third one, and looked into the girl's sapphire eyes.

"Yes" was the only response that the girl got, but that was enough for her.

"That would be wonderful!" she exclaimed, smiling a bit wider before Kurama turned to walk away from her. "Now you be safe today, and remember that stealing is wrong, Ok?" she shouted ahead to the now disappearing image of the little boy.

Looking up at the still empty street corner, Michelle saw that she missed her chance to cross the busy intersection. However, after her encounter with Kurama, she didn't seem to be in as much of a hurry as she was before.

'_God, please protect Kurama. I've seen enough child protection videos to know that he most likely is being abused. God, please help me gain his trust so I can save him from whatever harmful situation he is in'_ the girl prayed as her mind was racing with the horrible thoughts that someone might be hurting and manipulating that sweet boy to steal from people.

With the changing of the light, Michelle continued on her way to Ouran, but her thoughts along the way were still occupied by that little, feeble black haired boy. '_Little boys don't naturally act that way. The fact that he tried to steal from me so quietly means that someone told him what to do, either that or he's stealing out of desperation… Any way you look at this God, that boy is not in a healthy situation and I beg that you use me as a way to save him'_ she thought as she rounded the corner to her massive high school and entered in the iron gates.

Hey all!

Even though this chapter is really short for me, as I said last time, this one puts new wheels into motion. The next chapter will be double the size to make up for the shortness of this one.

I really hope that you all are enjoying my simple fanfic and I'd really, really, really love to hear from you guys! You never realize how much it matters to the author to leave even a sentence-long comment until you become one yourself lol ;)

As always, I want to thank all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on, from the bottom of my heart :)

See Ya Again Soon!


	24. Operation Help Yuki Chapter 24

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Twenty-Four: Operation Help Yuki!**

"Ok, are you ready?" the two identical red heads excitedly asked the nervous brunette in front of them.

It had been a while since the twins had a chance to help/toy with someone besides Tamaki and they couldn't wait until they had a chance to put their plan into action. They mischiefly glanced at each other knowing what ploy they had up their sleeves as they awaited Yuki's response.

Three rehearsals ago, Yuki admitted that he had a crush on Hyani Sunayo, a petite raven haired first year student with piercing pale blue eyes, who was in his class with the twins.

Well, he didn't really admit it, but it was rather forced out of him.

After seeing several of the practice sessions that the brunette had with Michelle, Kaoru couldn't take it anymore and his jealousy, a feeling that he was just beginning to understand why he was experiencing it, reared up within the normally calm twin. He and his brother ended up cornering Yuki when Michelle went to the bathroom in the middle of rehearsal one day and the two of them interrogated him to find out how their classmate felt about the girl that he was singing all of the romantic songs to. Tamaki also joined in on this interrogation, mostly though to make sure that Yuki had pure intentions as he performed with his cherished 'family member'. Frightened at the intense look on his questioners' faces, Yuki quickly admitted that he had a crush on Hyani and that none of them needed to worry about him getting together with Michelle. Happy with the meek boy's answer, Tamaki excitedly exclaimed that the host club would help Yuki confess to his crush and thus, Operation Help Yuki was born and now was underway.

"N… n…now?"

Yuki managed to meekly say as he fidgeted in his spot, nervous of what was about to happen.

"Yep!"

the twins chimed in unison.

"There's no time like the present" Kaoru said as he placed his right arm onto his brother's left shoulder.

Imitating his brother's change in stance, Hikaru placed his left arm on Kaoru's right shoulder and bluntly added with a mocking twinkle in his eye, "that is, unless you're too scared to tell her you like her".

Yuki was preparing to put his heart out on the line as he readied himself to tell a fellow classmate that he was in love with her and having the twins' intense glare just inches from his face was seriously fretting the emerald eyed boy.

"Oohh…OK. I guess I… I'm ready" he stammered.

"Great!" the twins said as they grabbed the boy by his arms and pulled him over to the area where Hyani was sitting.

Since Tamaki was the one who came up with the idea of Operation Help Yuki, he was in charge of getting Hyani into a semi-secluded area so Yuki would have the optimal environment for his confession. The tall blonde was currently engaged in a polite and genteel conversation, hosting Hyani while the twins prepped Yuki. The host king was currently sitting across from the raven haired girl on one of the plush velvet couches, which was located in a corner of the club away from all other host activity. In fact, the area he was currently in is the area that Kyouya usually conducts his vice presidential duties from.

'_This tomfoolery can't be over with quick enough'_ Kyouya begrudgingly thought as he tried his hardest to stay engaged in the conversation he was having with a small handful of host club regulars. '_It's not bad enough that I was relocated from my personal section of the club, but since three of the hosts are involved in this shenanigan I need to entertain their customers until their designated host is ready'_ the grey eyed boy continued to inwardly fume as he casually glanced over to see that Yuki was finally being dragged over to Tamaki and Hyani.

"HEY GUYS!" Tamaki stated in his normal too loud and too excited voice as the redheads and the brunette approached him and his current guest.

"Hey boss!" the twins chimed, also a little too excitedly.

"Hey Hyani!" the twins said as Yuki barely croaked out a meek "Hi Hyani".

"Oh hello Hikaru, Kaoru, and Yuki" the girl said sweetly, looking down as she said Yuki's name, not wanting to show that she was blushing.

Noticing how the raven haired girl reacted to Yuki from where she was sitting, Michelle smiled and thought '_this looks promising; I think she likes him to. Let's hope those boys don't get too carried away._'

Back in the area where Operation Help Yuki was in full swing, the twins 'bookended' Yuki, and awkwardly leaned on him, since he was a little taller than they were, and asked "So Hyani, did you know that Yuki here is the winner of the recent singing audition we had here?"

Before the girl could express her congratulations, Tamaki chimed in and excitedly said, "He's so amazingly talented and wonderful to work with! Have you had a chance to hear him sing yet?" the blonde asked as he put his hands on top of the girl's folded hands on her lap and moved closer to her in anticipation.

Once again before she could respond, the twins spoke up this time and started to brag about how wonderful Yuki was and about all his positive aspects. At this point, both Yuki and Hyani were as red as could be. The former was blushing because he wasn't used to having that much attention shined on him, especially in front of his crush, while the later was blushing in embarrassment about how wonderful of a person the guy she liked was. Because the trio was speaking too loud, as usual, Michelle heard them from where she was and turned to face the five of them. Looking over she saw how awkward the three idiots were making it for the couple that they were trying to join. Politely excusing herself from her current customer, Michelle purposefully walked towards the distant section in order to keep Operation Help Yuki from becoming a complete disaster. It wasn't because she didn't want Tamaki, Hikaru, and Kaoru to fail and realize that they were being morons, but she could tell that Hyani really did like Yuki. However, with all the attention that was being drawn to the two of them at this moment, there would be no way that a good ending would come out of this attempt. Upon reaching the five of them, Michelle completely ignored all of the boys and walked directly up to her fellow blue eyed girl.

"Excuse me Hyani, but can I talk to you for a second?" the strawberry blonde sweetly asked as she nobly extended her hand to the still blushing girl.

Eager to get away from the situation that she was in, Hyani quickly said, "Of course" as she swiftly pulled her hands out from under Tamaki's and reached for Michelle's.

Pulling the girl up, Michelle then put her hand on the petite girl's shoulder and began to escort her over to an empty window seat. The boys started to object as they watched in shock as the female host waltzed off with their current target, but with one death glare shot over Michelle's shoulder at them, the girl caused them all to shut up.

"Man, she's been around Kyouya-Sempai too long" the twins muttered under their breath as a shiver of fear shot up their spines, while Yuki and Tamaki were too scared to make any sort of response.

Charmingly motioning for Hyani, who had stopped blushing, to take a seat by the window first, then Michelle sat down in order for them to have a private conversation.

"First of all," the blue eyed host began, "I would like to apologize for Tamaki and the twins, they can quite easily get over excited and forget how to properly interact with young ladies like yourself. That being said, I would actually like to ask you a question, if I may" Michelle sweetly and softly said looking at raven-haired girl eye to eye.

"Of course" Hyani meekly replied, slightly afraid of what Michelle was going to ask her.

"I've noticed for a while the way you act when Yuki's around. Normally, you are very outspoken and calm, but whenever Yuki gets near you, you speak so quietly, you almost whisper, and you seem to get flushed, like you're getting right now" the strawberry blonde said as she gently pushed aside the small strip of hair that fell across the once again crimson face of Hyani.

Looking into the petite girl's eyes, in a rather maternal or loving older sister manner, Michelle softly asked, "You like Yuki, don't you?"

Immediately recoiling from the intense gaze of the female host, Hyani started to stutter and play with her hair, looking completely nervous at the question that was just asked of her.

"I.. I.. That's.." the small girl attempted to say until she just gave a small sigh of defeat and let her hands drop down to her lap. Looking at her hands that were now enfolded in the pale yellow material of her uniform, the girl quietly said

"yes."

Smiling with a mixture of pride, happiness, and caring for the meek girl in front of her, Michelle leaned in and placed her hands upon Hyani's.

"You should tell him that then. Chances are he feels the same way" the strawberry blonde said as she attempted to catch the raven hared girl's eyes as she looked up at the host.

"Wha.. I could never! No, I'm not brave enough to tell him that" the small girl said slightly panicked at the thought of saying such a potentially embarrassing thing to her crush. "What if he says that he doesn't like me? What if he laughs at me? What if…" she started to protest before Michelle cut her off.

"First of all", the host began, "Yuki is not the type of person to laugh at someone. You should know that since I'm sure it's his kind heart that caused you to like him to begin with, am I right?" Gazing out the window, but still allowing the blonde host to cradle her hands in her own, Hyani slowly nodded in agreement.

"Second of all, If he doesn't like you, at least you can move on and start dreaming about something that might actually happen, but" Michelle started, but paused for the raven haired girl to face her before she continued her statement. "But if he does love you and is too meek himself to tell you first, wouldn't it be better finally making your dreams a reality and no longer just a fantasy?"

Gazing deeply into the sapphire eyes of the host that was giving her guidance at the moment, Hyani started to internally debate the concept to herself. After a minute or two of a comfortable silence between the two girls, the petite girl slowly started to form a smile.

"You know what Michelle-Sempai?" she asked, now completely grinning with happiness, "You're right! I really should tell him how I feel!"

Michelle started to smile as well at the fact that she had gotten through to the once timid girl in front of her.

Out of the blue, Hyani removed her hands from Michelle's and lunged forward to embrace the host in front of her. "Thank you for giving me the courage I needed to do this" she quietly whispered in the strawberry blonde girl's ear. Pulling away from the hug to look at the host's blue eyes again, "and thank you for listening to me. You are a wonderful friend".

"You're welcome" the female host said sweetly, truly happy that she was able to help someone out again. "Now go" she said gently freeing herself from the petite girl's grasp and making a small 'shooing' motion, "Tell him how you feel now before you start to doubt yourself again".

Still widely smiling, Hyani simply nodded her head and walked over to her crush. Michelle waited until she saw Hyani take Yuki aside so she could confess before the strawberry blonde slowly arose from her seat. Emitting an evil aura, much like the shadow king himself, the normally sweet female host approached Tamaki and the twins, who were still in the area she left them in. Without warning, Michelle 'Gibbs slapped' the two twins' heads and glared at the casually lounging Host Club prince as she seethed,

"are you guys really morons or just seriously deluded enough to think your approach in fulfilling 'Operation Get Yuki Together', or whatever you called it, would work?"

Fully recoiling into a fetal position from his previous splayed out position, the purple eyes of Tamaki grew large in fear as he swore he could see lasers shooting out of the blue eyes of the girl in front of him. The twins also recoiled and began to rub the back of their heads, more shocked at the fact that Michelle actually hit them than anything else.

"Well?" she grumbled as she awaited an answer that didn't involve her wishing to whap them again.

Recovering from their shock, the two twins looked at each other with a devilish glance in their cat eyes as they took their position on either side of Michelle, using her shoulders as a leaning post.

"We knew that tono's plan was idiotic and was going to fail if we did it the way he told us to" Hikaru nonchalantly said as he raised his free hand and half-shrugged.

"Yeah, the moron actually thought that if we listed non-stop how wonderful Yuki was, that the girl would melt into a puddle of awe and he'd be able to whisk her off with one fell swoop or something ridiculous like that" Kaoru added as he mimicked his brother's stance.

"WAIT!"

Tamaki shouted as he bolted straight up from his seat, "You mean you thought my perfectly and brilliantly thought out plan would fail to impress the fair maiden Hyani?"

The prince's face was truly confused and hurt as his simplistic mind tried to wrap itself around everything that had happened so far. First of all, his plan failed, second of all, Michelle showed that she can be as scary as his best friend, and lastly his two co-conspirators thought that the plan they worked on all night was a waste.

'_What is wrong with the world?_' he thought as he awaited the doppelgangers' answer.

Losing all of her anger since she truly was curious, their current leaning post spoke up and asked, "Then if you knew that your plan was going to fail, why didn't you modify it and do something that would have worked?"

At this question, the two redheads slowly and deviously turned to face the girl, "because it was more fun to get you to take care of it."

This answer caused both blondes to freeze in shock. Tamaki, in his normal overdramatic reaction, fell to the ground on all fours muttering something about how he wasn't being treated with the respect he deserved as the founder of the club. After a moment or two of stunned silence, Michelle, who was looking down at the ground with her long strawberry blonde hair draping either side of her face so the twins couldn't see her malicious stare, spoke up.

"Are you telling me…"

the girl strained to say, trying to fight back the rage that was building up inside of her, "that you merely carried out your plan so you could manipulate me into doing the hard work for you".

"Duh" was the response that she heard in stereo.

"It might have been easier to just ask you to talk with Hyani, but where's the fun in that?" the duo said in their bratty manner, smugly thinking that Michelle was their current toy, just like Haruhi once was.

At that comment the rage building up inside of the girl radiated from her like a force field, physically knocking the two brothers off of her shoulders.

"You jackasses!"

Michelle half yelled at the two boys who were now clutching onto each other and completely cowering from the normally polite female host who was now raising her arms as if she was going to hit them again, this time with much more force.

"Are the four of you done with your little 'discussion' yet?" a silky smooth voice said from behind Michelle. "And it's a good thing that club hours are over with or else our customers would have heard the language that you just used" the be-speckled boy continued as he took another step closer to Michelle and stood right next to her in a purposefully intimidating way.

Not looking up at the boy next to her, the girl just seethed to him, "did you hear how those two jac… -ahem- morons manipulated me?"

"Of course, and if you ask me you are as much to blame as the two of them are for manipulating you because you allowed yourself to be manipulated" he stated calmly and fixed his glasses.

"WHAT?" Michelle screeched as she turned to face Kyouya.

"ARE YOU TELLING ME THA…"

was all she got out before the grey eyed boy turned to face the twins and blandly said, "and for your little hi-jinks, the two of you are stuck on clean-up duty for the rest of the week. I've told you before that if you want to manipulate people, stick with people who will most likely not physically strangle you" he finished, motioning to the girl whose hands were in such tight fists that they were turning white from lack of blood flow.

The twins looked like they were going to protest the undeserved punishment, until they noticed that Michelle really did look like she was going to kill them.

"Aye, aye boss"

the two of them said as they saluted Kyouya and quickly ran away to start their new job.

"Thank you" the girl strained to say to Kyouya, with a murderous twang to her voice, "but I'd rather just strangle them next time".

Pushing up his glasses before he responded, the shadow king merely said, "I know, but unfortunately those two are a necessary evil for this club to function".

At this the girl angrily started mumbling rather like Tamaki, who took advantage of Kyouya's coming over to retreat from the scary conversation and was now on the other side of the room.

"Since the two of them are doing the clean up for the next few days, why don't you go home, I'm sure your aunt and uncle miss seeing you around the house" the raven haired boy stated, not resisting the chance to stress Michelle's lie to her face.

Glaring at him as she started to walk away to grab her book bag, not wishing to give him the satisfaction of any response, Michelle just stormed out of the room.

'_Hmm, she definitely is getting more comfortable around here. I really thought that I was going to have to call the Ootori Private Force to clean up the twins' blood stains from the carpet. I wonder why she got so enraged at them though? I manipulate her all the time and she never gets that riled up'_ Kyouya thought as he pulled out his laptop and started to type away.

'_Interesting_.'

Hey all! Now that one was a fun chapter for me to write, I just love letting Michelle really come out of her shell. Thank you once again for all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on and please let me know what you guys think :) I hope you all are enjoying this story as much as I am and I'll See Ya Soon!


	25. Dreams and Reports Chapter 25

**Chapter Twenty-Five: Dreams and Reports**

The area was completely white. There was a seemingly endless white floor and there were white walls that just faded into the sky, seeing as there was no ceiling. It was completely empty, just a barren space.

With one exception.

Standing about thirty feet away from her there was a man in his early twenties. The man was obviously an American. He had slightly long, but well trimmed dark red, almost maroon-colored hair, rich emerald eyes, a fit physique, and he was as tall as, if not a little taller than the host club's king. He was wearing a pale blue button down, long sleeved shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a black tie with teal, periwinkle, and forest green threads dancing along in a pattern across the material, long khaki slacks, and brown loafers. There was nothing impressive about the way he looked, no particularly handsome features on his face, in fact he looked rather plain and completely awkward standing by himself in that stark space.

However, to the girl he was the most welcomed sight that she could ever have hoped to see.

"MIKEY!"

the girl excitedly screamed at the top of her lungs as she bolted as fast as her legs could take her to the familiar face of her next-door neighbor from home. He is a local middle school music teacher and he was her mentor back in America, but more importantly, he is one of the closest and dearest friends she had. She loves him like an older brother and constantly relied on him for guidance.

At the sound of the strawberry-blonde girl's voice, the man looked up at her, his emerald eyes were glittering with happiness as he smiled a wide grin and opened his arms even wider to welcome the girl who was running straight for him. The two collided and instantly wrapped their arms around each other as the girl nuzzled herself into the redhead's left shoulder.

She relished the warmth that was emitting from the man's arms and chest. She could feel his arms strongly holding onto her as a long lost friend that never wanted to let go of his recently recovered friend. She could feel his chest rising and falling with each breath. Taking a deep breath, the girl could feel his cologne flooding her olfactory senses with the familiar smell.

For the first time in many months, the girl felt completely happy,

completely loved,

completely safe,

completely home.

No words were said among the two of them, but the silence was comforting.

_-Beep Beep Beep Beep-_

the sound of an alarm clock shattered the silence and the girl watched in horror as her minimalistic surroundings disappeared, but even more to her dismay, so did the man she was clutching onto.

"NO!" Michelle screamed as she bolted awake in a cold sweat.

Her blue eyes were wide with confusion and fear as they darted all around the small room, trying to figure out where she was. Her mind was racing as she tried to figure out what happened to her close friend. Moments later she fully woke up and realized that it had all been a tormentingly wonderful dream. Sadly she reached out to shut the annoying sound of the alarm clock off, but she made no attempt to get out of her bed. Instead, she pulled her legs up to her chest and clutched onto them as she had once held onto the man in her dream a short while ago.

'_I've had many dreams about the people I had to leave back home'_ Michelle thought as she reminisced about the experience she just had, '_but I've never experienced anything that vivid. I mean I could smell his cologne, I could feel his arms…'_ she thought as she hugged her legs tighter.

'_God_', she prayed, _'I miss all of my friends so much. The longest I was ever away from them was the three months I spent in Europe and at least then I could contact them. At least I had my mom, my dad, and my best friend with me. At least I knew that I would see them again soon. This is hell for me!_

'_How are they doing? Do they even miss me? Would they ever want to see me again if I get out of this stupid Witness Protection Program? What about Wren? How's she doing? What if one of my friends dies while I'm gone and I never get the chance to see them again?'_

These thoughts and hundreds of others flooded her mind. Ignoring the fact that she had to get up to face another day of school, the girl just stayed there and cradled herself, never allowing a single tear to fall down her face. No, she was stronger than that.

She was stronger than that.

**~**=Across Town=**~**

The sound of keyboard keys clanking has been emanating from the third Ootori son's room since he had entered it the night before, indicating that the low blood pressure demon had stayed up the entire night.

'_This Valentine's performance was supposed to be another simple show to plan, the only thing that was supposed to change was the number of performers from one to three. Now thanks to that moron Tamaki and that girl,_' his grey eyes narrowed as he thought of the female host, '_I have to figure out how to accommodate all of the props and elaborate gimmicks that idiot wants for the show.'_

**~**Flashback to Yesterday**~**

Right after practice was over for the night, Tamaki pulled his best friend aside and exclaimed "I have a whole bunch BRILIANT plans mommy! First, for the Aladdin song, I want to rig an actual flying carpet to whisk away the two lovers on their romantic lyrical journey" he said, excitement dripping from every word as he acted out a carpet flying away with his right hand, while the other hand was stationed on the raven haired boy's shoulder.

"Also," the bubbly blonde continued to say before Kyouya could show how displeased he was at the thought of trying to figure out the logistics of getting a carpet to fly, "when Michelle sings 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' I want to play on a piano that the cover has been bedazzled with diamonds and for her to have a swing, hanging from the ceiling. Oh, and…" the annoying purple eyed boy rattled on as his best friend tried to keep up with his incessant and grandiose ramblings.

**~**End Flashback**~**

Who knew that all of the last minute additions would cause Kyouya to stay up all night to financially work everything out?

Well, who besides Kyouya that is.

The only consolation in all of this is the fact that he convinced Tamaki to not tell Michelle about the changes they were making to 'A Whole New World'. He reasoned to his idiot best friend that it would be more convincing if Michelle was completely taken by surprise when the carpet lifted for the first time. While that might logistically be true, Kyouya just wanted another chance to feel like he had the upper hand on her. It was unbelievably frustrating to him that no matter how hard he tried with blackmail and the like, the blue eyed girl somehow always remained unshaken and still held all her secrets.

Looking at the bottom right hand side of his laptop screen he saw that it was already time to get ready for school. Removing his glasses to rub his weary eyes, the boy figured it was a good time to check in with Asunna to get a status update on his other blonde haired annoyance's whereabouts. Reaching groggily over to where he placed his cell phone on the nightstand, the grey eyed boy snapped it open and pressed the speed dial on his guard without even looking at what he was doing. After two rings, the slightly gruff voice of his brunette employee answered the phone,

"Good morning Ootori-sama"

Grumbling the same greeting himself, Kyouya asked Asunna for a quick report on his assignment.

"She hasn't done anything out of the ordinary, sir. The light in her room just turned on, so she's getting ready for the day, but… wait." The guard paused as he remembered something that he saw the week before, "she had a little run in with a young pick-pocketer a few days ago and since then he's visited the church a couple times to meet with her."

Finding that report truly curious, the grey eyed employer asked, "do you know who he is or what he does when he's there? And how young is young?" the Ootori son interrogated Asunna.

"Well Ootori-sama" the gruff voice responded, "he seems to be about ten years old and from what I can tell she provides him with food and they play together sometimes, but I have no idea who he is. My guess is that he is one of the street urchins that wanders around in this neighborhood."

Accepting that explanation and asking once again if there was any new information about the female host, Kyouya hung up on Asunna and started getting ready for the long school day that lay ahead of him.

'_If I can just make it to club hours, I can collapse on one of the couches and no one will be stupid enough to bother me'_ he thought as he yawned, dragging himself to his bathroom to change into his uniform.

'_I just have to wait until then'_ he thought day dreaming about being able to sleep later on in the day.

Hi everyone! -ducks immediately behind the corner and peers out to check that no one threw something at her- Is the coast clear? I'm soooooooo sorry that it's been so long since my last update, but life really can just suck you in and take you out if you're not careful. As an apology, and since this is such a short chapter, I'll post the next one tonight as well. Anyway, I hope that you continue to enjoy the story and I would love to hear from you, even if it is a complaint on my disappearance… 


	26. VDay Performance Time! Chapter 26

**Chapter Twenty-Six: V-Day Performance Time!**

It was about thirty minutes to show time and Michelle was in her dressing room getting ready for tonight's big performance. When the blue eyed girl first entered the small room, she simply stood there, looking at all of the elaborate costumes that were hung in the order of when she needed to wear them. While it is true that she is getting used to elaborate and excessive amount of costumes that the twins made her wear for each performance, tonight it all seemed so overwhelming to Michelle. Since tonight's performance called for a lot of quick changes, she was wearing a flesh-colored leotard underneath her clothes because there were a few outfits that she would need help getting on in time, help that was going to be provided for her by Kaoru. Earlier that day the twins were arguing about which one of them would be the one to help Michelle with the quick changes, since the costumes are their mother's property. Realizing early on in the argument that if the two of them were helping her at the same time, it would just hinder the speed of the costume changes, rather than improve it, the female host quickly ended the brother's argument when she walked up to them, bluntly said "you are going to be the one helping me" as she pointed to Kaoru, and then walked away from the then quieted boys. The reason she chose Kaoru was because she really was beginning to consider him a close friend and she knew that when he was separated from his brother, he'd be very efficient in helping her.

The redhead himself was shyly completely happy that the blue eyed girl chose him to help her and he even blushed a little when she picked him, a gesture which his brother failed to catch because Hikaru was too busy pouting at the fact that he was not chosen. However after she had chosen him to assist her, Kaoru began to ponder life itself. Because of Michelle and the way that he felt when she was around, the hazel eyed younger twin was beginning to question himself and started to self-reflect on the world that he made and the walls that he built up with his brother. Was he really sure that it would always just be the two of them? Did he want that? How exactly does Michelle fit into his current worldview? Does that need to change? Whatever the answers to those questions were, he was still glowing when the preparations began for tonight's performance at the fact that he was getting closer to Michelle.

Back in the present, the girl host was solely focusing on the performance coming up because everything about this performance had been completely stepped up from the last set of talent exhibitions. So many worries engulfed her mind as she reached out for her turquoise, satin Princess Jasmine two piece costume, an outfit that would be covered during the first song selection by a long, white Egyptian robe that was lined with gold macramé, complete with an intricate and beautiful tapestry embroidered trim along the middle and the bottom of the robe.

'_Ok, so the first two songs don't really worry me'_, the strawberry-blonde started to think as she did a mental check-list of what lay ahead of her that evening as she got dressed, '_I practiced the welcome speech and the closing speech about a hundred times, so that's set'_.

That was the first change from the last series of performances. Since the Valentine's show was Michelle's 'gift' to the audience, Tamaki wanted the female host to do the introduction and closing, not Kyouya. He reasoned that it would be more personal and more romantic if Michelle took center stage and was the main focus, a concept that still infuriated the sapphire eyed host.

'_The first two dance sequences are easy as well_' she thought as she mentally danced through the routines for the Cinderella medley and 'Can I Have This Dance', '_but I pray that I can make it through our Moulin Rouge sequence. I mean the tango is extremely exhausting and difficult to do and with one wrong step in that precisely timed routine I can throw not only Asagi, but Kaoru, Yuki, Mori, and Tamaki as well._'

For the Moulin Rouge sequence they had elaborately staged a dance that included a dialogue between Kaoru and Yuki at the beginning of 'El Tango De Roxanne', a passionate tango leading into a fight between Michelle and her potential "john" for the night, Asagi, while Mori followed her dramatic motions with a spotlight, all while staying perfectly in time with the background music and flourishes that Tamaki would be playing. So many practices were thrown off because Tamaki got too swept up in the music, because Michelle accidentally tripped when she was supposed to intertwine her feet with Asagi's, because Asagi accidentally threw Michelle further than she was supposed to go, because Yuki started singing again before the two dancers stopped arguing out loud, and the mishaps just continued. It was a grand production and this was their only shot to get it right and since Michelle was the main character for the evening, it all came down to how well she could handle not only making sure that she performed it flawlessly, but also making sure that she could think on her feet quick enough if something went wrong.

As she was worrying about the tango, Michelle grabbed for the shoes and other Jasmine accessories, while she was completely absorbed in her frets. She jumped a little when she saw that a brunette boy absent mindedly walked into her dressing room. It seems that Yuki was so worried about the upcoming performance that he walked into Michelle's changing room instead of the one that they set aside next door for him. The singers both looked up at each other in shock, but before either of them could say anything, the twins instantaneously materialized and descended upon Yuki.

"Man we knew that Tamaki was a pervert,"

the hazel eyed boys started to say as they jumped in front of the meek boy, blocking his view of Michelle. It was rather pointless that they took that position since the girl was fully dressed, but they wanted to be more dramatic in their upcoming scolding.

"But we had no idea you were too" Kaoru continued as he leaned in to Yuki.

"Yeah, I guess what they say about the quiet ones is true" Hikaru added as he copied his brother and glared at the completely frightened boy.

"Enough of that"

Michelle said angrily as she stopped the two of them from bullying Yuki anymore by hitting the twins in the back of the head, just like she did a few days ago. She could see that her singing partner was already freaking out about the upcoming show and the twins certainly weren't calming his nerves. Rubbing the backs of their heads as they looked like they were going to protest about her new trait of making physical attacks against them, the girl cut the twins off and addressed Yuki saying,

"Ignore them, they just like to attack people when they are their weakest. Are you worried about the show tonight?"

she asked as she pushed the redheads aside like a swinging door and put her hand on the trembling brunette's shoulder. He slowly nodded his head as he twisted his hands in front of him out of extreme nervousness.

"Well, there's nothing to worry about. We've got this" the girl's sapphire eyes sparkled as she flashed her signature glittering smile, in an attempt to calm him down.

Looking meekly up at her, her singing partner asked, "You think?"

"Nope" she said as she let out a small laugh at the shocked look on Yuki's face from her response. She leaned in to him and said with a confident grin as she put her hands on his shoulders,

"I know"

Smiling now as well, Yuki nodded his head and muttered, "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm gonna go and get ready now!"

After the emerald eyed boy shuffled out of her dressing room, the two doppelgangers used her as a leaning post and said with a scoff in unison,

"That was a corny reply"

"Yeah I know it was," she said as she turned to face the twin on her right, "but it worked didn't it?" turning to the twin on her left as she said it.

"Now you two" the girl added as she shook them off of her suddenly, much to their surprise, "Get out of here so I can finish getting ready! I'll see you when I need to change from Jasmine to Cinderella Kaoru, but for now, go!" She gestured them to leave her room and the twins reluctantly complied.

Being left alone in peace once again, Michelle resumed putting on her ensemble, starting with Jasmine's signature black ponytailed wig.

'_Now if only I could feel as confident about this performance as I claim to be'_.

Shaking her fears off, she reminded herself that perfect people don't have such needless worries as she finished fully getting ready, and finally Michelle emerged from her dressing room, ready for the evening's performance.

"Are you all set?" a silky smooth voice came from behind the turban wearing girl.

"I guess," Michelle honestly answered Kyouya before she realized what she was saying and quickly changed her answer as she spun around to face him, "I mean of course I am."

'_Damn it, I'm beginning to speak honestly to him. That can't happen, especially not with a conniving, arrogant person like him. He's a person who desires to know everything about everybody when it's not his business to begin with._' She beamed a falsely confident smile to the raven haired boy who looked like he couldn't really care less either way.

"Have you completely memorized your welcoming speech this time?" he snidely asked as he thought back to the first rehearsal where she kept forgetting her lines.

Scoffing at the bespeckled boy before answering, she obviously sounded annoyed at his comment, "Kyouya you do realize that I only messed it up the very first time we ran through it, I said it perfectly all forty-nine other times we practiced it in rehearsal" she added with an eye roll and walked away from him smugly.

In the corner of her eye, Michelle could see that Yuki was still getting ready. He was trying to put his Aladdin turban on correctly as he clumsily wandered over to where the carpet was prepared for the second song. Unlike his singing partner, he was warned about the fact that the carpet was wired and set to rise once he sang the words 'A whole new world' for the first time. He didn't bother to tell the strawberry blonde girl because he assumed that Michelle knew about it as well, not knowing that Kyouya really did keep that bit of information from her. The brunette finally placed the turban on right when he heard the squeaking of the red velvet curtains being pulled back to allow the female host to take her position on center stage in the dark. In the dark, he couldn't see her bless herself as she said yet another prayer for the success of the performance. The room was entirely hushed from the moment that the lights were lowered as the boys in the audience waited in breathless anticipation for the show that they waited for so long to see to begin. Finally, noticing that Michelle was in position, Tamaki started to play the beginning chords of the Aida song, signaling the official beginning of the show.

'_Here we go'_

Michelle, Yuki, and Kyouya all thought, waiting for all of the 'fun' to begin as the girl took a deep breath to start her song and Mori shined the spotlight upon her in her ornate costume.

See, here's tonight's second chapter as promised. Now as I mentioned when I started this story, I will not be able to update too often, but I do not foresee me taking such a long hiatus again. Thank you for all those who have put up with me and welcome to all the new readers! :)


	27. Revenge Chapter 27

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Revenge**

It was now 10:30 in the evening and all was relatively quiet in the Third Music Room at Ouran Academy. The show had been over for about an hour now and it was a smash hit overall wand every routine was performed with true professional excellence, or as Michelle would put it, it was 'Disney quality'—the highest praise that she can give. Every second during the show, the audience members were completely absorbed and Kyouya could tell that they had found a good set of performers in Tamaki, Yuki, Asagi, and the strawberry blonde annoyance of his. The raven haired vice president knew for certain that he was going to call upon Yuki and Asagi to share their talents again in the future. The participants of the show themselves were also extremely pleased with the evening's performance and, with the exception of Michelle and Kyouya, they were all at their homes, relishing in the fact that they had given the performance of a lifetime.

Kyouya was currently typing away on his pineapple computer in the hosts' club room as he contemplated the evening's performance while waiting for Michelle to be finished in the dressing room. He was extremely pleased that they were able to successfully stage a show that supplied such an enormous profit, but he was practically fuming inside as he pounded on his laptop's keys.

'_She went too far this time'_

the be-speckled boy seethed in his mind as he recalled the humiliation that he was subjected to during Michelle's Valentine's performance. The source of his aggravation was taking forever to get cleaned up that evening because she had to peel off layer upon layer of makeup and had to rip out the clumped up pieces of hairspray that were saturated in her hair due to the twins' over exuberance in their job of getting her 'performance ready'. They had told her earlier that they had to glom everything onto her in order to keep her from sweating it all off when she did the difficult dance routines, and she had to admit that it did work in that respect. However, after two hours of attempting to get a comb through her hair without ripping all of her strawberry blonde locks out was more than enough for Michelle's nerves.

'_Maybe I should have taken those twins' offer and let them get all of this crap out of my hair_' she frustratedly thought as she winced when she found yet another knot in her hair as the blue eyed girl tried for the umpteenth time to get a comb through that small section.

'_However, knowing them and the recklessness that they approach everything with, I would've definitely been bald before they were done_' she added as she remembered her reason for shooing them away about forty minutes ago.

'_I really do feel bad that Kyouya had to stick around and wait for me. I mean I definitely didn't want to leave Ouran property looking the way that I did, but I didn't want him to have to lock up after me' _the girl thought as she finally pulled the comb through her hair for the last time ten minutes later and as reached for her Disneyland Paris messenger bag.

When she emerged from her dressing room, the boy, whose mind was currently filled with plans of how to get back at her for his humiliating treatment, glared up at her as she walked towards the charcoal eyed host.

"I'm so sorry about that Kyouya", the girl said sweetly and honestly apologetically, "But I'm ready to go now. Thank you so much for waiting."

After she noticed that the boy had not moved after she let him know that she was ready, Michelle asked quizzically,

"Are you ready?"

"Michelle, before we leave for the evening" he hissed as he stared at her behind his glare hidden glasses, "We need to discuss tonight's performance of 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend".

She paused for a moment, slightly caught off guard at the frigid reaction that the female host received from the shadow king, as she allowed her mind to flash back to the part of the evening's performance that he was referring to.

She remembered that at the time of the song she was still slightly annoyed at the raven haired boy, because she noticed that after she inwardly freaked out at the carpet rising during the performance, Kyouya simply smirked at her reaction. From that simple gesture of his, the sapphire eyed host knew that he planned to surprise only her because Yuki didn't flinch at all when the elaborate Turkish carpet rose off of the floor. Immediately after 'A Whole New World' had finished, Michelle started to plan a way to get back at the grey eyed boy for his little prank. Calculating quickly, she figured that since there is part in the song 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' that discusses an employer, and as a bonus, the description was not the most flattering one, that would be the best moment to 'repay' Kyouya for his little joke on her.

**~**Flashback**~**

_There may come a time when a lass needs a lawyer, but diamonds are a girl's best friend—_Michelle crossed the floor, showing off the diamonds that the twins completely draped her with –

_There may come a time when a hard boiled employer thinks you're awful nice, but get that ice or else no dice—_She extravagantly pointed to Kyouya, who was sitting in the front row off to stage left, she fanned herself as if she found him completely attractive, and she walked in front of him with her back to him, pausing for a second to flirtatiously yelp as if he reached out to pinch her at the word 'nice' before she mockingly wagged her finger at the audience at 'or else no dice'–

_He's your guy when stocks are high, but beware when they start to descend—_She then put her right arm on his right shoulder and slowly walked around his back, dragging her arm across his back , only to pause with her right arm on his left shoulder as she coyly bent over him while tracing her left hand, pointer finger extended, down the front of his chest to match the words 'when they start to descend' –

_It's then when those louses head back to their spouses, diamonds are a girl's best friend—_She walked around to the front of him and then dismissively flicked her wrist at him as she crossed back over to stage right–

**~**End Flashback**~**

Recalling her moment of coy brilliance, Michelle just smirked at the agitated boy in front of her as she prodded,

"What about it?"

"That was rather unprofessional of you and your actions were rather unbecoming not only for you, but suggested something towards me that I rather resent" he continued in his cold manner as he fixed his glasses so she could see that his eyes were boring holes into hers.

Thrown off that the boy took her joke so seriously, the strawberry blonde just cooed "There was nothing unprofessional about acting that scene out, since my character at the moment was a show girl who would act that way with her customers. As for the 'suggestion' as you put it" she said in air quotes as she calmly sat down on the couch next to Kyouya and positioned herself comfortably before retorting,

"You and I both know that it was a harmless performance flirt and no one in the audience is stupid enough to think otherwise. And finally, let's face it," she continued in her coy voice as she looked at him superiorly, "you need to be taken down a peg every once a while Mr. Hot Shot."

Anger was truly boiling though the grey eyed boy's veins as he heard every word that the commoner next to him was tossing at him during her speech. Michelle thought, much to her delight, that the calm and cool shadow king was going to completely lose his cool and flat out snap at her. She was actually rather looking forward to see him react that way because of all the times that he put her in a similar position that caused her to react that way herself.

However, before he truly did lose his composure, Kyouya looked down at his lap, took a deep breath, smirked, put his laptop on the coffee table in front of them, and as he fixed his glasses he slowly looked up while he began to emit a truly devious aura.

Watching in confusion as her antagonizer gained control of his emotions, her blue eyes were fixed on his grey ones as he calmly stated, "So you say that people ignore otherwise compromising situations if they know the two people involved?"

The girl turned away from his gaze as she meditated on his words for a few moments.

"Yeah, I do"

she said as she nonchalantly nodded her head and turned to face him again.

However, before she fully faced him again, she was forcefully thrown onto her back on the couch and found two legs straddling her hips and two arms resting on either side of her now tussled strawberry blonde locks. She blinked up in confusion as she tried to calculate how she arrived in the position she was in, as a smooth familiar voice started to speak right above her head.

"So according to you, if someone was to walk in now and saw you and I in this position, no one would think anything of it since it is an impossibility for me to take advantage of you."

He said this with a slight menacing sound in his voice as he leaned in closer to the girl who was still thrown off by his actions. As he leaned in closer in an attempt to make his message clearer to Michelle, a switch turned on in her mind and she understood what he was getting at.

However, and unfortunately for him, she didn't arrive at the conclusion he had hoped for.

"Basically" she nonchalantly said as she turned from his face and made no struggle whatsoever.

"People are going to believe whatever they wish to believe and if someone was idiotic enough to think that I liked you or that you liked me, it's their own stupidity. Quite frankly, if they aren't smart enough to know better, then their opinion doesn't matter," she said as she turned back to the now shocked boy as she mimicked his earlier actions and leaned in closer to his face,

"now does it Kyouya?"

While she didn't actually think that people's opinions of her didn't matter, she said that because she knew that those words would disarm the shadow king and ensure that she walked away from this situation on top of Kyouya, power-wise that is.

Correctly analyzing the be-speckled boy once again, at her last comment, he let go of her and sat on the edge of her couch leaving her to sit up on her own. The fury that previously enveloped him had completely dissipated and he actually chuckled at her comment and said,

"You are certainly interesting, you know that" as he fixed his glasses again.

"Yeah, I get that all the time" she said as she swung her legs around behind him and fixed herself in order to sit upright next to the raven haired boy.

"But might I add, I knew you wouldn't do anything like that anyway", she said smugly, hoping to continue toying with him.

Kyouya turned to stare at Michelle as he had a truly confused look in his eyes awaiting her to continue her statement. She seductively put her left hand on his right shoulder and leaned in to his ear, in her attempt to make sure he knew that she wouldn't be intimidated by any physical advances by him. Softly whispering as her lips hovered inches away from his ear lobe, Michelle cooed,

"You would never force yourself on someone like me because there's no financial benefit for you."

As soon she said that, she forcefully clapped her hand onto his shoulder with an audible slap and stood up. As she turned to reach for the grey messenger bag that had fallen onto the floor during Kyouya's recent stunt, she heard him chuckle again at her comment as he muttered,

"You're right, good answer. Good answer", while he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Not responding to his latest comment, Michelle merely smugly smirked as she put her hands on her hips.

"Well, anyway, I would appreciate it if you refrained from doing any sort of those motions or suggestions towards me or any of the hosts in the performances from here on" the male host stated in his business-like manner as he walked over to his computer to shut it off in order to leave the club room with Michelle.

"Yeah, yeah, fine, whatever"

she dismissively said with a flick of her wrist as she walked over to the exit of the club. Giving the boy a mock salute, rather like Megra from the Disney movie Hercules, Michelle added

"see ya later Kyouya. And thanks again for waiting for me to finish cleaning up. Night" as she closed the door behind her.

'_Hmm, she at least is an interesting annoyance'_

Kyouya thought after he locked the door behind him as he dialed Tachibana and stalked down the hallways that lead to the front of the school.

_Hi Everyone! WOW! So many fav authors and story hits as well as another comment! Thank you so much everyone! Cheli-chan, thank you so much for your comment and I hope that this little snippet of the performance works for you. Who knows, if I get enough interest, I might write a bonus chapter one day describing the costumes, dialogue, and some of the staging of the performance. This chapter was a little difficult because I really wanted to work the scene from "The Sun, the Sand, and the Host Club" in somewhere, but I think that I kept Kyouya true to his character. Anyway, I hope that you all are still enjoying the story, I hope to write again soon [remember the commoner's exhibition that Tamaki was daydreaming about before the Valentine's performance? It's gonna be next] and I'd love to continue hearing comments and receiving alerts. See Ya Soon!_


	28. Commoner Exhibition Chapter 28

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Twenty-Eight: Commoner Exhibition!**

A tall, raven haired teenage boy finally stirred from his current resting place after remaining motionless since the moment that he arrived to the complex several hours ago.

'_Why does my back hurt so much?'_

the half asleep boy frustratedly thought as he removed his glasses to rub his eyes, trying to get a bearing on his surroundings better.

'_Wait, where the hell am I?'_

he thought as his charcoal eyes scanned the area. The teenage boy found that he was in a loud, crowded hallway and that he was slouched over on a rather disgusting looking bench. He sat up as he wiped his hands in disgust at the thought of his person touching any part of the gum covered, poorly maintained wooden slab that he was sitting on.

'_Wherever I am, I'm completely surrounded by commoners. This is not the type of locale that I would ever want to find myself in. Now how the hell did I get here?'_

he continued to think as he looked haughtily upon all of the people who were rushing by him from one little booth to another.

'_Wait, I think I know where I am_'

he angrily thought as he stopped trying to make his hair look presentable when he recalled something that his idiotic best friend had mentioned to him the day before.

'_I think they dragged me to some sort of commoners' shopping complex in order to humor Tamaki so he can witness a commoners' expo.'_

"Damn it, I've got to instruct Tachibana to alleviate Tamaki of his household privileges at the Ootori manor until further notice." He muttered as he glanced down at his attire to see that his best friend dressed him in a flowery button down shirt and a pair of plain jeans. While that did bother him slightly, to his fervent dismay, Kyouya could not find his all-important cell phone anywhere on his body.

'_I am going to kill that moron the next time I see him for abandoning me in the middle of this place and without any means of communication or any way to even pay for something'_ he thought as he began to physically emit a dangerous and deadly aura when came upon the realization that he also didn't have any money on his person.

The people around him who ignored his presence moments before, turned to see the source of the evil feelings that they could now sense all around them. Everyone recoiled in fear as the charcoal eye's of the boy bore into the facing wall with such an intense glare eyes that he looked like he could strangle the next person who walked by him with his bare hands. Before anyone near him had to figure out who would be brave enough to approach the menacing teenager, a strawberry blonde girl, who was standing nearby, also felt the familiar menacing aura reach her.

"Ah so I see that sleeping beauty's finally awake" the girl joked as she casually approached the scary boy.

"Jeash, I was wondering how long it would take for you to get up. I mean, I thought I hated mornings more than anyone… guess I was wrong" she chuckled as she sat down next to the still steaming mad boy.

"Where the hell is Tamaki?"

Kyouya struggled to get out without yelling at the girl who was so clearly mocking him.

"Tamaki?" she repeated with a shrug, "I have no clue. As soon as we got here, he dumped you on this bench and he and the other hosts split up in three different directions, all acting like little kids in a candy store or something. Let me tell you, it was weird and slightly creepy how the twins started chanting 'Mass production' over and over"

she added as she made some sort of gesture that she thought the boys were acting completely insane by getting so excited about something as common as an exposition hall in a mall. Ignoring the continued grumblings of the boy next to her, Michelle continued and said,

"Anyway, I wasn't going to just leave you here and follow them since I knew you'd probably be confused when you woke up and knowing that airheaded king, he probably would have forgotten to get your money and your cell phone when he was getting you dressed this morning; a concept that I still find rather strange mind you, but whatever" she added with yet another shrug.

Kyouya turned to the girl, shocked that the female host was able read his best friend so well. After briefly staring at her, he then turned to face the wall in front of him as his stomach growled in hungry protest.

"Well, you're right that the moron left me without any money, so that means you are paying for breakfast"

he coolly said as he stood and motioned that she needed to get up and lead him to the nearest location to get food. Jumping up to follow him, the strawberry blonde was completely happy that Kyouya was pissed at someone other than her, thus making him an easier target for her teasing. Within a couple minutes, Michelle had led him to food court that was one floor below their previous location. The young Ootori glanced at the poor selection in front of him and wandered over to a popular fast food chain.

"Oh, yes, do remember to collect the receipt. I will make Tamaki pay ten times the price" he spit out as he glared at the options on the board in front of him as the girl just shuffled to stand next to him.

"There's no need for tha…" she started to say before Kyouya harshly whipped around to glare at her,

"Yes there is, that idiot needs to pay for basically abducting me and abandoning me without any money or means of communication" he interceded and just as quickly turned around to face the front again.

Knowing that the bespeckled boy was too pissed to politely order his meal, mostly because she was used to this sort of random temper flares that her mom used to go through, Michelle gingerly got him to tell her his order and ushered him to go and find them a table. After getting their food, the girl watched as Kyouya angrily, and with no inkling of table manners, scarfed down his food. She smirked again at the fact that her antagonist was so livid while she munched on her own fries. The meal was mostly silent except for a few mocking comments from Michelle, comments that Kyouya tried to get her to stop, but completely failed at. He threatened her at one point that if she didn't stop mocking him, he would increase her debt, but in response the blue eyed girl only excitedly said,

"Wait, for a onetime payment I get permission to mock you whenever and however I want? Wow, sign me up now!"

After they finished their meal, the two of them started to wander around in an attempt to find their friends. As they wandered around the expo, Michelle was intently looking around at all of the various items that were on display.

'_Man this reminds me of all of the various market places around the world that I used to visit with my parents and Wren. In fact, this place reminds me a lot of the last jewelry and craft expo that we went to in Myrtle Beach. That was three weeks before the accident…_' the strawberry blonde thought as the smirking smile that was on her face a moment ago quietly disappeared.

"Hmmm, these are the black pearls from Ishigaki Island. This is high quality. Can anyone here actually afford them?" Kyouya questioned as the two teens walked by a jewelry stand and effectively breaking the girl from her sorrowful thoughts.

"Wow, those are beautiful. Ya know, I've always liked the black pearls more than the boring white ones, but how'd you know where they come from? I mean you just glanced at them from a distance." The girl thought as she turned her blue eyes from the item to face her companion.

"I have been taught about such matters ever since I was a child" the boy coldly said before he continued walking to the next booth.

'_I can understand being taught about the world of finance and business, but where the heck does jewelry fit in?'_ Michelle thought as she hurried to catch up with the long legs of the young Ootori. '_and come to think of it again, how did he know so much about American theater? Is there some sort of financial benefit to being educated in matters that I would think that the business world would deem as 'frivolous'? He constantly is confusing me…'_

Within a few more moments, they successfully found Tamaki, not that it was too hard hearing his excited bubbly reactions as he fawned over some sort of commoners toy that had a remote control and flew in the air. The two looked at each other as soon as they heard Tamaki's giggles from across the hall and instantaneously, Kyouya left her side in order to whack his best friend for dragging him and dumping him in the expo.

-THUMP-

Kyouya's hit over Tamaki's head echoed through the hall as his best friend cowered away from the source of his pain. The moment Michelle caught up with her companion, Tamaki ran over to her and clutched onto her back.

"If you _ever_ do that again…"

Kyouya seethed as he bore holes into Tamaki's eyes while the trembling host king hunched behind the girl. Clearing his throat as he regained control over his emotions, Kyouya calmly told the blonde that he owed Michelle eight thousand yen for breakfast that morning. Not being the type of person who would normally accept money from another person's blackmail situation, but knowing that she wasn't going to win against Kyouya when he was as pissed as he was, Michelle just turned around to address the trembling teenager with a calming smile,

"If you don't mind Tamaki, our church is having a toy drive and if you could help me purchase a few toys, we'd be even."

At her comment, the twins and the cousins seemed to appear out of nowhere and asked her to explain what a toy drive was. She told them that there were a lot of underprivileged children in the area of the church and that,

"every year the parish community purchases toys and other items of entertainment to put a smile on the children's faces and to help them feel like they are loved and cared for." She said as her mind flashed to thoughts of Kurama and her current struggle to help the young battered child out of his horrible condition.

After she explained what the drive was, all of the other hosts, minus Kyouya, banded together and made some sort of competition about who could purchase the most toys in the least amount of time for Michelle's toy drive. The winner, much to her dismay, would get to dress the female host up however they wanted in the upcoming week's cosplay plans. She had no idea where they got such a concept in their heads, but before she could 'politely' inform them that there was no way in hell that she would dress up in something that she didn't approve of, the hosts had all dispersed on their treasure hunt. Luckily for her, Hunny won the competition. That meant that she didn't have to wear the ultra girly and super short maid costume that the twins were hoping for, nor did she have to wear the ultra frilly lace, long skirted, and pink pastel bo-peep dress that Tamaki voted for. However, while Hunny's choice was not sexist or demeaning, it was still rather unflattering and truly too cutsy for Michelle's taste. With his love for all things cute, the little senior picked out a baggy and floppy white bunny costume for her to dress up as Usa-Chan's big sister.

In the end the female host truly didn't care because between the five boys and her, over two-hundred toys were purchased and ready to be donated to the toy drive.

'_I can't believe that the boys got so many toys!"_ the blue eyed girl thought as she rode in the truck that was hired in order to bring all of the toys to the church.

'_In one day I got Fr. Kichi more toys than he'll know what to do with for the toy drive and I even got to see Kyouya completely pissed off at someone other than me!_' she giggled out loud as she thought about how satisfying it was to see her antagonist get frustrated and physically lash out at another person.

'_All in all, today was a very good day'._

Hi everyone! I'm back again. As always, thank you for all of the story alerts and fav author/story selections, I really appreciate the support :)

Now this was obviously another one of my attempts to interweave the original story with mine [and might I add that I think it's soooo hilarious that the chapter that discusses the expo in the manga is also chapter 28. I did not plan that!], so while a lot of this might be new, I know that you will all recognize the parts that I borrowed from the amazing original story.

For the next chapter, Kyouya is finally going to tell the other hosts what he knows about Michelle, is it going to be a good thing that he does that or not? See ya all real soon and I hope that you are continuing to enjoy the story!


	29. Operation Find Michelle's Home Chapter29

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: Operation Find Michelle's Home**

It was six-thirty in the morning on a beautifully warm and sunny Saturday when a loud and commanding voice could be heard from the third Ootori son's normally quiet room.

"All right men, listen up,"

the somewhat serious and authoritative voice said,

"Mommy has pointed out to me that our daughter Michelle might not actually be living with her aunt and uncle. It is our job as her family to make sure that she has not been kidnapped and held against her will by some evil villain or sold into the slavery of another person by people who were masquerading as her family, or…"

the tall blonde continued to rant as Hunny's eyes were widening in fear as he considered all of the different situations that Tamaki was rambling about. Finally unable to drown out the noise anymore, the up till then motionless raven haired boy slowly and maliciously turned in his bed to face the host club members, who for some reason had gathered in his bedroom for their meeting.

'_While I'll admit that I told that moron about Michelle so he could organize some sort of idiotic operation, why the hell is he doing this at my place? And why the hell are they here so early in the morning?'_ he questioned as he evilly squinted his eyes at the boys who dared to wake the low blood pressure demon from his sleep.

Feeling the evil radiating from the no longer sleeping form of Kyouya, all the hosts took a step back from the edge of the bed. The bed itself was now completely covered in a purple, menacing mist.

"What are you morons doing here?"

Kyouya seethed as he truly wished that he could shoot lasers from his eyes at the cowering forms in front of him. Not wanting to die, the twins quickly shoved Tamaki forward so he could talk with his scary best friend. Pausing for a brief moment in fear of what his best friend could do to him, but quickly shaking off all his fear as he remembered why they were there, the tall blonde anxiously grabbed Kyouya's shoulders and said worriedly,

"But Mommy, Michelle could be in great danger and it is our duty as her parents to save her from it!"

Furious at the idiotic conclusions that Tamaki was coming up with and fuming at the fact that the violet eyed boy had pulled him into an upright position and was now clinging onto to him in a tight hug, not to mention the return of the annoying nickname "Mommy", Kyouya shoved Tamaki off of him and promptly onto the floor with one strong push. Plopping onto the floor hard enough to wince from the pain, the airheaded prince scurried away from the raven haired boy who was now reaching for his glasses and getting up to go to the bathroom to freshen himself before dealing with the hosts. As soon as Kyouya left the room and slammed the bathroom door behind him, the twins pulled out a chalk board, from out of nowhere, and started to map out the plans that Tamaki was concocting. After several minutes of intensively mapping out every host's mission, minus Kyouya's, the chalkboard now looked like an elaborate game play that one would find in a locker room at the Super Bowl.

"Everyone understand their mission?"

Tamaki questioned as Kyouya stalked back into his bedroom silently and sat down on the couch behind Mori.

"Aye Aye boss" the twins and Hunny excitedly exclaimed as they saluted the host king.

"Would you be so kind as to repeat your mission plan" Kyouya menacingly said, still fuming that he was woken up so early on a weekend.

After everyone jumped slightly, since no one noticed him re-enter the room, Tamaki pulled out a pointer and grandly motioned to each plan on the chalkboard as he verbalized what the drawings depicted.

"First, I'm going to call Michelle on her cell phone and tell her that there is new sheet music for her to practice due to next week's medieval knights theme. Then, Red 1 and Red 2 will stealthily follow her back to her house, since no one seems to know where she lives, and stake it out for the night in order to make sure that everything is kosher with her living arrangements. Next, Captain Bunny and Captain Panda will invite Michelle out for a movie while the two of us gain entrance into her home and seek out signs of torture or abuse. If everything is all fine there, we shall know that our little girl is safe and sound meaning that all our fears will finally be quelled" he finished with a grand flourish, a motion that signaled the other hosts to applaud at the brilliance of the intricate plan.

Pinching the bridge of his nose since he felt a stress migraine coming on, Kyouya coolly said, "as much as I would like to search her home, unless we know exactly what we are looking for, we will not find it. Why don't we just have Hikaru and Kaoru (he overly stressed their names to avoid using the moronic code names that they had been given) follow her tonight and we'll take it from there." He had said this because he knew that the shock of his annoyance living in a church instead of the family setting that she has been telling them, will be enough for them to handle at this time.

'_Besides, I'd rather interrogate her face to face for the truth then hope that we'd stumble upon an answer for all of my questions about her,' _the bespeckled boy thought to himself as he pulled out his pineapple laptop.

Looking a little saddened that their part of the mission was cut out, Hunny just scampered onto his cousin's shoulders and agreed with Kyouya's alteration, knowing better than to argue with the shadow king.

"Sounds good to us" the twins said in unison as they motioned for Tamaki to call Michelle, "now let's get this thing going".

"Just remember that you two are gentlemen first and foremost" Tamaki scoldingly said as he pulled out his cell phone, suddenly realizing that he just assigned the mischievous twins to basically stalk his "daughter" for the night. "If I found out that you have done or seen anything inappropriate…"

"Yeah yeah, we know" they chimed as the saw their boss hold his finger up, signaling that Michelle answered her phone.

'_Soon I'll have my answers'_

Kyouya smugly thought as Tamaki started to talk to the grey eyed boy's personal nuisance. After fixing his glasses, he pulled up his stock portfolio on his laptop and beamed at the fact that he would soon have information on all of Ouran's students,

'_Finally'_.

**~11 o'clock P.M. and Operation Find Michelle's Home is underway ~**

The twins' location_ – Right outside Heavenly Savior's rectory, hidden in the bushes on the back side of the property, facing towards the living quarters and away from the street_

Red 1 and Red 2, since the twins complained rather loudly that they wanted to keep their code names intact, were currently all decked out in the most sophisticated spy gear that civilian money could buy and they were wearing head-to-toe camouflage. Looking through their night vision binoculars, the two boys who were shrouded in darkness, crouched next to each other, waiting for the familiar frame of their friend to leave the building for the night.

"What time is it?"

Hikaru whispered to his younger brother, agitated that they have been in the same spot for so long. They both expected her to have left the church by now.

"It's eleven" the younger one said blandly before doing a double take at his watch.

The two boys immediately looked up at each other in shock at the possibility that their friend could be living in the church. Not needing to exchange a word between the two, they reset their hazel eyes upon the building in question and waited for her to prove their suspicions wrong. In silence both of their minds raced as they tried to explain the situation that they found themselves in, both approaching the puzzle from a different angle.

'_What is she doing in a place like this?_' Kaoru questioned himself. '_Could the boss be right, could she be in trouble? I mean she always told us that she's staying with family, but this just doesn't seem right' _he thought as his mind raced for an answer to explain this anomaly. He did not want his growing trust in her to be misplaced, so his mind kept him from thinking poorly of her in any way.

'_Who is this girl then?'_ his hotheaded brother thought to himself and in a manner that left no room for a scenario in which the girl could be trusted, '_I mean if she lied to us about where she's staying, how do we know she hasn't been lying to us about everything? See, now this is why I don't want to let people into our group of friends…_' he thought angrily as the two boys repositioned themselves for comfort.

'_We're most likely going to be here all night'_ the two thought in unison.

Hey everyone! As always, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for continuing on with my story and I hope that you are enjoying it. A special thank you for kaitlyn's comment! I love hearing from you guys! While I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not Michelle will end up with Kyouya, I will admit that I have finally decided who I want to end up with her in the end. You'll just have to wait and see which boy it is ;) I'll write again soon so I'll see you then! :D


	30. Truth? Take Two Chapter 30

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own any of the songs mentioned

**Chapter Thirty: Truth? Take 2**

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, just as it was the day before, as a teenage girl started to walk to the corner tea store for a little morning 'pick-me-up' after the 8 AM Mass. If someone was close enough to the girl, they would have heard her humming the unmistakable melody of '_I Just Can't Wait to be King'_ as she slightly bounced to her destination. With a smile on her lips, a skip in her step, and a song in her heart, it was clear that the strawberry blonde did not have a care in the world as she journeyed along. All of a sudden, a white limo screeched to a halt right next to her and in a blur two identical boys around her age grabbed her by the arms, put a sack over her head, and tossed her into the back of the opened limo. It all happened so fast that no one on the street even saw the incident, leaving the girl to deal with her kidnappers on her own. Moments later and after much struggling with her captors, struggling that left one of them with a bloody nose and both of them with partially damaged eardrums, someone pushed a chloroform soaked cloth to her nose and she blacked out. In what appeared to be no time at all to the drugged girl, she awoke to find herself strapped to what felt like a desk, just like the ones at her school, and in a pitch black room. Petrified of the situation that she found herself in, but knowing that you can never show fear in such situations, the girl rapidly blinked her sapphire eyes in an attempt to see in the darkness that surrounded her after her captors removed her blindfold.

'_What's going on?'_

she questioned to herself as she tried to steady her breathing in order to seem calmer than she really was. Suddenly a bright light beamed onto her face, continuing to blind her, and she heard a voice loudly demand,

"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

With those four words, all fear and worry disappeared in the girl's mind and it was replaced with utter annoyance and almost homicidal anger towards the people that surrounded her.

"TAMAKI, YOU MORON, you damn well know my name! Now what the hell am I doing here and why the hell am I tied up?" she yelled at him as she glared into the darkness at the direction of the disembodied voice.

The voice who was talking before was suddenly joined by two scolding voices, voices that were also very familiar to the girl, muttering

"great going boss, now she knows who we are".

"I didn't mean to…" the first voice started to say as the other voices joined back in to berate him some more.

Ignoring the hushed bickering going on behind the blinding spotlight, the girl just looked to the side and into the blackness as she said frustratedly, "Hunny, can you please put the lights on?"

Within seconds, the whole room was filled with light and she found that she was surrounded by the people she expected to see and she was in the room that she figured she was in. Still completely annoyed by the way that she got to the third music room and the way that she was currently being treated, the strawberry blonde looked up at the trio that was trying to regain their sight in the now bright room and said menacingly through a truly scary smile,

"Now will you tell me what you idiots are up to now and then let me go so I can kill you for getting me here like that?"

"No can do" Hikaru said as he flanked her right side, ignoring her threatening words even though he knew very well that if they let her go at that moment, she'd certainly follow up on her threat.

"Yeah, you haven't answered our Tono's question yet" Kaoru said as he flanked her left. However, he wasn't as close to the bound girl as his brother was because he was truly afraid to get too close to her in case she managed to snap out at him through her restraints.

"Gah, seriously? What are you talking about?" the girl frustratedly answered with a sigh since she knew she was going to have to endure this madness for a little longer.

"Tell us your name you foul imposter" the tall blonde stated harshly, wagging his finger inches away from the girl's face.

Never losing her outward poker face, even though she was beginning to freak out on the inside thinking that her cover in the Witness Protection Program was blown, the strapped down girl calmly stated,

"Michelle Rose Warner, but you guys already know that. And c'mon, what's up with this imposter crap?"

"We followed you to the place you've been staying at"

Kaoru stated as he got bold enough to lean in closer to the girl that he had feelings for. His mind was currently consumed with the fear that he had fallen for a fake. He had grown so used to being around her that he had fully let her into his little world without his knowledge, but if she was an imposter, his heart would be shattered and he would withdraw back into his world with his brother and would probably never venture out again. More than anyone else in the room, her answers during this interrogation meant so much to the fragile twin. Would he be scarred and never live a normal life because his brother was right about the outside world… or not?

"Yeah, does the name Heavenly Savior mean anything to you?" Hikaru accusingly said as he leaned in as well.

Calculating how she should answer this question, the blue eyed girl realized that she needed to default to the back-up lie that she came up with just in case this sort of situation happened. She was quite used to having a slew of back-up lies for every occasion because when she was younger she was quite the sneak when it came to going against her parent's wishes and rules. Since her parents were in the government, even though they were too low level to truly check any of her alibis when she lied, she had learnt a long time ago how to tell a convincing lie and how to tell it in such a way that all of her tracks were covered. Now, continuing the lie riddled life that she was used to living when her parents were alive, she had a plan to twist everything around in her favor again and hopefully stop any further inquiries into her identity. The strawberry blonde prayed that the fact that she was living at the church was the only proof they had that she was lying about her identity and easing back into her perfected actress mode she started her grand charade to save her cover. Putting on a fake shocked and embarrassed face, the girl coyly and quietly said,

"yeah, I know that place" and left it at that.

"Well is it true or not that you are living in the house next door to that church?" Tamaki dramatically interrogated her as he tilted the spotlight into her face more.

However since the overhead lights were on, his gesture completely failed in intimidating her and she had to hold back a scoff at his ridiculous behavior when she answered him,

"Well, it's called a rectory, but yeah… it's true. I live there with Fr. Kichi, the pastor of Heavenly Savior" she falsely meekly looked down as she said this to avoid the boys' glances.

"Did you kill your aunt and uncle and seek sanctuary in the Church?" Hikaru blurted from out of nowhere as Hunny slightly gasped at the ridiculous accusation.

"Wha… No!"

Michelle quickly and bluntly answered while trying to figure out where such a preposterous claim would come from.

"Were you sold to the priest by your aunt and uncle because they were too poor to take care of you and themselves?"

Tamaki questioned with his eyes filling up with tears at the thought of such a tragic possibility.

"Uh, no" Michelle answered as her face scrunched up in disgust at the ridiculous stories the crazy boys were coming up with.

"Are you a secret agent who's stationed here undercover to assassinate someone?" Hunny chirped in question from the shoulders of his tall cousin as he clutched the neck of the black haired boy.

"Ok, really? No, and what's with all these ridiculous questions?" Michelle asked fully exasperated by the level of stupidity in the room at the moment.

"They are merely trying to justify to themselves a reason why the girl, whom we accepted as one of our own, would have lied to us the entire time, and if she's hiding anything more" a cool smooth voice cut in.

'_Crap, I was hoping he wasn't in on this, now I've definitely got to make sure that my reasoning sounds sane or else, he'll find a way to destroy it'_ she thought as the look of disgust melted off her face as she began to tell yet another lie to her now closest friends.

"Well, you see," she started slowly, hoping that the more melancholy she made it, the more believable it would be. "I was telling you guys the truth that I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Japan. But what I didn't know, and what I didn't find out until I spent all my money on coming over here, was the fact that they just seemed to disappear." At that statement the air in the room lost all of its tension and the boys around her, minus Kyouya, started to sit down on nearby couches.

"You see, when I first got off the plane, I went to the area that they once lived in, the neighborhood around Ouran, but I honestly had no idea how to start looking for them. I guess in my desire to get out of the U.S., I hadn't really thought that far in advance. Anyway, I wandered around the neighborhood for the better part of the day and I found myself at the doorstep of Heavenly Savior. In a moment of true desperation and exhaustion, I went inside to pray" she stated pausing for a moment.

"I know that God always hears my prayers and this time He responded by sending me Fr. Kichi. The priest was coming back from a marriage prep counseling session and was walking down the middle of the church when he noticed me hunched over and deep in prayer. He stopped and asked me what was going on and the next thing I knew, he actually offered to help me find my family. He then invited me out for lunch because I hadn't eaten anything since I got off the plane, and afterwards took me to the city hall so we could look them up. When we got to city hall, there wasn't any proof that they lived here at all. I guess they were just lying to my parents and me when they told us they were moving to Japan."

Knowing that all ears were still listening to her and feeling a sense of déjà vu from the first time that she met her friends, Michelle continued her lie and said, "Well, I was devastated at that, since as I said, I spent all my money coming over here hoping to find my aunt and uncle and now here I was, stuck in a strange country with no one at all. However, before I had a chance to truly worry about what I was going to do, Fr. shocked me by offering me the guest room in the rectory in exchange for any help that I could offer from time to time. I'm truly blessed that he took me in since I don't know what I would have done if he didn't. It's not like I had that many options at that point."

When she paused melodramatically as she pretended to calculate how badly it could have ended up for her in her lie if Fr. Kichi had not taken her in. Kyouya, always wanting to take it a step further, piped in and asked,

"How did you receive the money needed to attend Ouran then?" for he knew that she wasn't a scholarship student.

"Well," Michelle said while quickly praying that this would work on her antagonist, "My parents had a taken out a special type of insurance or something to help me scholastically. With this grant, or whatever it is exactly, my education will be paid for by the U.S. up through graduate school, if I wish to go that far, but that money cannot be used for anything else."

Actually nodding as if her explanation made sense, the strawberry blonde slightly sighed in relief as she saw Kyouya's satisfaction at her answer. However, what she didn't know was that he was making a mental note to research if such an insurance plan existed because he wanted to make sure that the mystery of Michelle was a least somewhat explainable by her current explanation, even though he was having the hardest time accepting her most recent fabrication.

"Then why'd you lie to us and say that you were living with your aunt and uncle?" Kaoru meekly asked, slightly ashamed that he thought the worst of his crush just a few moments ago.

"Well" the girl mimicked the meekness of her questioner in her answer, "I know that people really look down on commoners at this school and those are commoners that at least have family. Since I don't have any money and I don't have any family, I was really afraid that everyone, including you guys, wouldn't want to even talk with me since I'm so poor that I even have to rely on the kindness of a stranger."

When she finished saying this she looked down sadly at her lap, trying her hardest not to smirk at the ease that she figuratively put the final nail in the coffin on the boys' inquiries into her past.

"Also," she added just to make sure that she properly convinced them, "I actually wanted to tell you guys the truth a long time ago when I realized that you guys really are my friends and would never snub me for something that stupid, but I was truly afraid that if I told you that I had lied about something you would never trust me again and would treat me differently forever. I know that the only reason I got used to life in Japan was due to your friendship and I didn't want to do anything to risk losing that," she stated sadly as she continued to avoid eye contact as part of her ploy,

"I really don't know what I'd do if you guys stopped being friends with me".

Even though she was still lying to them about her past, this time she truly and completely realized how much their friendship meant to her. It's true the female host was afraid that they'd find out who she was and thus put her friends in America in danger, but she also was completely afraid at the idea of losing the loving atmosphere that she experienced with the host club.

'_I hope that one day not only can I tell them who I really am, since I do feel bad that I'm so blatantly lying to them again, but I pray when that day comes I haven't used up all the trust that I almost lost today' _she thought as she waited for someone else to break the silence, betting to herself that Tamaki would be the one to do it.

Buying every word that came from his friend's mouth, Tamaki bull rushed the still bound girl, tears flowing freely from his eyes, as he exclaimed

"We'd never stop being your friends, we all love you so much my dearest _daughter_!" making the strawberry blonde girl win her little inward bet.

The twins and Hunny gasped at Tamaki's slip while Mori and Kyouya just widened their eyes and slightly tensed up at the sound of that final word. Realizing a moment later that he had accidentally let the forbidden familial term drop around Michelle, Tamaki jumped back and started to apologize when the girl host inwardly realized that she was just indirectly offered the best opportunity to tighten the bond of friendship in the club as well as a chance to gain her trust again, she jokingly but sweetly responded,

"Thanks… dad".

"MOMMY!"

Tamaki excitedly squealed instantaneously after she had said the three letter word, "SHE CALLED ME DAD!"

""

he quickly sputtered out as he rushed forward to hug her again, only to be stopped by the twins this time. Linking arms while standing right in front of her, blocking Michelle from the frenzied attack from the host king, they said to themselves,

"Man, the boss is still acting like a pervert".

"Yeah" Hikaru coyly said to his brother, "He just wants to hug her while she's still tied down".

"I know" Kaoru said matching his brother, "A normal person would untie her first, but not our boss".

Panicking because the tall blonde had indeed forgotten that Michelle was still bound in the chair, he began to make a motion to set her free, only to be whisked off by the twins so they could harass him some more. Seeing that he had a chance to help Michelle, Hunny bounded off of his cousin's shoulders and skipped over to set her free. With a huge smile on his face as he loosened her bonds, the little blonde chirped,

"I'm glad you're not a spy."

"Thanks. Me to?"

Michelle questioned with a small giggle as the little boy finally freed her from the chair.

"Promise me that you'll remember we're your friends and you don't ever have to feel ashamed about something around us, 'kay?"

he questioned as he jumped onto her lap to give her a great big bear hug.

"Thank you so much Hunny and Mori" the strawberry blonde said as she tightened her squeeze around Hunny as she noticed his taciturn cousin nod in agreement with his little cousin's statement. Happy that she not only diffused the tense situation, but that she seemed to appease everyone's questions and doubts about her, Michelle just smiled as she patted Hunny on the head as she lifted him of her lap and rose from her seat.

"Now," she started as she cleared her throat, "let's discuss how you guys are going to repay me for the treatment that I received this morning, shall we?" she said glaring at the twins and Tamaki.

The three of them paused their bantering again at her words and they froze in terror at the malicious look and the evil mist that was emanating from the girl. In a way that made Kyouya smirk, the strawberry blonde just folded her arms in front of her and before anyone could interrupt her, she instructed,

"In payment for the way you manhandled me, _all_ of you will accompany me next Saturday to distribute all of the toys that my church received from the toy drive."

Noticing that she stressed the word 'all', Kyouya dropped his smirk and questioned,

"All of us?"

"Yes, because none of you trusted me enough to just ask me for the truth without going through all of this foolishness, nor did any of you stop the foolishness. Therefore, you all must attend" she added glaring at Kyouya.

"Can we meet this Fr. Hichi?" Hunny asked excited that they might get to meet her guardian.

Michelle instantly dropped her angry face due to the cute little boy's question and giggled at him, "yes, you'll get to meet Fr. _Kichi_" she said correcting him.

At that comment all of the boys got excited and Tamaki said something about getting to meet the person who is caring for his beloved daughter.

"And" Michelle added going back to her current annoyed mode as she turned away from Hunny's face, "I still believe that you owe me an apology".

"I believe we could say the same thing" Kyouya retorted as he fixed his glasses, "If you had only told us that you were staying with the priest, you could have avoided this whole situation…" he started to scold.

However, before he could say something else, Tamaki and the twins, in complete fear of what might happen if they didn't apologize to the girl who had physical tendencies to hit them, dropped to their knees and overdramatically bowed as they apologized to the now smug girl host.

'_Hmm, weak morons'_ Kyouya thought as he picked up his notebook to pencil in the new excursion onto his weekly calendar and went over to his normal corner in the club room.

"Thank you. Apology accepted," Michelle said in a superior tone as she smiled at the fact that she fully got to the point where she could intimidate the hosts.

The now complacent girl proceeded to leave the room when she paused at the door and turned around to playfully blurt,

"Last one on foot to the tea spot that you guys kidnapped me from, pays for drinks!"

With that childish and friendly comment, she bolted out of the door, followed in hot pursuit by all of the boys, minus the calm Kyouya who just whipped out his phone so Tachibana could transport him to the location without him having to look like a moron. The friends' laughter could be heard as the group raced through the hallways and out the door to Hakanu's Tea Retreat. As they raced to the shop, Michelle knew that life was once again perfect, a feeling that she hadn't truly had since she was in America.

'_Life is good, thank you God'_ she prayed inwardly as she tried to catch up with the only two people to pass her, Mori and Hunny, giggling with every stride she took.

'_She might have explained why she was living with the priest',_ the grey eyed boy thought as his limo pulled up to the Tea Retreat moments before his friends arrived, _'but there is still no explanation for the background block on this girl and the fact that I can't find a file on her anywhere. Now I'm going to have to revert to just relying on myself to get to the bottom of this problem. I'm beginning to wonder if going through all this trouble is worth it.'_

Hi everyone! I can't apologize enough for being such a sparatic updater lately and honestly, no excuse is big enough to forgive my lack of updating… Anyway, here is the newest addition and you can all have CeliaSingsSongs and MorWolfMor to thank. As I was cleaning out my inbox, I saw the two review notifications and they reminded me and inspired me to continue with this story. So thank you for shaking me awake again and I hope that you enjoy this chapter as you have enjoyed the rest :)


	31. Toy Town Chapter 31

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own the rights to Disney

**Chapter Thirty-One: Toy Town**

"Is everything all set in the parish hall for our little guests?" a kind elderly voice asked the teenage girl who just walked into the rectory's kitchen.

She looked a little tired from the morning's set-up, but she had the oddest look of both excitement and unmistakable nervousness on her face. Fr. Kichi had never seen the strawberry blonde look nervous about anything before, but then again she never had her friends from school come over either.

'_I cannot morally approve of her lying to her friends, but I understand why she had to come up with that extra story. Only she and I can know that she is the Witness Protection Program for her safety. I'm just glad she filled me in on what she said before they arrive'_ he thought to himself as she plopped down in a seat next to him.

"Yep, it's all set Father and thank you once again for letting my friends come over" Michelle sincerely said as she started to fix her mussed up hair.

"How could I say no to that request? Not only am I excited to meet your friends, but I truly wish to extend my gratitude to the boys who donated more items to our toy drive then ever before" the kind priest responded.

"When are they arriving?" the grey haired priest asked as he poured Michelle a cup of tea.

"Well, I told them that they need to be here about an hour before we start distributing the toys, just so I can make sure they know what to do" she responded after thanking him for the tea, thinking to herself that she also needed to make sure that they knew what not to do.

Before anyone else could say anything else, a deafening screech of tires could be heard outside the window.

"And that would be them" she muttered sarcastically as her guardian physically jumped and almost dived under the kitchen table at the annoying sound hailing the arrival of the host club.

"It's ok Fr.", the girl said as she put a comforting hand on his shoulder, "I told you they can get a bit... Well, enthusiastic at times. Let me go out and welcome them in" Michelle added as she walked out the door leaving the still startled priest alone in the kitchen.

'_Why am I so nervous about the guys coming over?'_

Michelle questioned herself as she closed the door to the kitchen and headed closer to her classmates. So many thoughts were rushing through her mind as she thought about how she had to make sure that the boys behaved well around the kids and not like the snobs they tended to be, she thought about how her guardian had to repeat her story exactly as she told him or else the boys would see through her lies, and she was gearing herself up for the snobbish reaction that her friends would have to her living conditions. She wouldn't blame them for that last reaction since she knew that if she was in their shoes just a few months ago, she'd probably be just as snobbish as they will be about such a small living area.

'_It's amazing how much a few months can change a person_' she thought to herself as she approached the boys who were in a huddle for some reason.

"All right men," Tamaki said as he started his instructions, "we are guests of Michelle-san and her guardian and as such, we must act as proper gentlemen. Words such as 'dull', 'drab', 'tiny', and the like are not allowed under any circumstance, are we understood?" he questioned, glaring at the twins mostly.

"Aye, aye sir"

was the response he got from the twins and Hunny.

"Remember," he continued, "we do not want to offend our hosts by anything we say, is that clear?"

Before they could respond again, Michelle spoke up and said, "guys, there's no need for that. I get that you aren't used to seeing such a small house and there's nothing you can say that will offend me. The only way to piss me off today would be by acting like the rich brats that you tend to be, when we get around the kids, is that clear?" she said, emitting a aura of intimidation yet again.

All the hosts were shocked at the fact that their friend said that she wouldn't mind them being brutally honest about her living conditions and all of them recoiled in fear when she glared at them with her last comment. Nodding their heads in agreement because they knew she'd make them regret it if they angered her, Michelle switched to her dazzling smile and said,

"well in that case, welcome to my home guys" as she extended a hand towards the rectory door.

Accepting her welcoming stance, the hosts walked to the door of the small house and since Mori was the first one to get there, he opened the door for all of his friends. They all shuffled into the tiny foyer and were soon greeted by the smiling face of the elderly priest.

"Welcome boys" the kind old man said as he reached out to shake the hands of the hosts, "I'm Fr. Kichi and let me just tell you how appreciative we are for not only your overly generous donation, but for your presence to distribute them all. I can't tell you how much your benevolence will mean to these children, but since you are here, you will soon see their joyful reactions for yourselves" he said finishing with an even larger grin on his face.

"But please, for now, won't you come in and make yourselves comfortable" he said as he gestured towards the kitchen which was set up for their arrival.

After thanking their host for his warm welcome, the boys all shuffled into the kitchen and Hunny piped up and said "We brought you a cake" as they began to sit down at the table.

"Oh, thank you Hunny-sempai" Michelle said as she took it from his hands and put it in the center of the table while Fr. Kichi got the plates and silverware for the desert. After officially introducing all of her friends to her guardian and after they all finished their little snack, Michelle cleaned up the table and excused herself in order to get her piano watch, which she left in her bedroom. Once the hosts heard that she was going up to her bedroom, all of them perked up at the opportunity to see what a 'commoner's' dwelling area looked like and somehow they convinced her to take them upstairs. Begrudgedly leading them to her room, all of the hosts followed her on the 'grand adventure' with one exception. Kyouya remained at the table to talk to the priest.

'_Now maybe I can figure out some more about her from her guardian'_ the grey eyed boy thought as he fixed his glasses and started his mini interrogation with Michelle's guardian.

While Kyouya was downstairs with the priest, continuing to hit the same barriers that he encountered with Michelle, the hosts upstairs were having a ball. Hikaru and Kaoru, being the fashion mavens they are, plunged into Michelle's small closet and dresser and began picking apart almost every item. They knew that if they mocked a Disney article of clothing that the strawberry-blonde would descend upon them and make them regret any snide comment that they made about said object, so they stuck with commenting about everything else. Hunny had found Michelle's stuffed Dale toy and began to introduce the rounded chipmunk to his beloved Usa-Chan while Mori watched. Tamaki however was the biggest nuisance since he was constantly grabbing random objects and bringing them to Michelle, awaiting a description of each fascinating commoner object. Dealing with Tamaki, the strawberry blonde felt like Scuttle when he was explaining a brand new human item to Ariel, but at least she actually knew what each item really was and didn't have to invent information. Several minutes later, the hosts heard Fr. Kichi beckoning them from downstairs, letting them know it was time to head over to the church hall in order to get ready for the children. Ushering the boys out of her room as if they were sheep or some other sort of herded animals, the female host cleared her friends out of her room and they all headed over to the church.

Once they got to the church hall, they met up with several other volunteers and the hosts took a seat as Michelle started to give instructions to everyone gathered. After the detailed instructions were given about the event, an event that was more than just an opportunity for the children to stand in line and receive new toys, she appointed everyone to a station. Her idea was to create a day of fun and games for the kids, with her main focus being to spread the message that each and every child in attendance was a precious gift from God and was invaluable as such. Shortly after everyone had taken their positions, they were soon greeted by the excited chatter of dozens of little children.

'_Ok, game time'_ Michelle thought as she prayed that the hosts would behave themselves and that her plan would go smoothly.

**~**=Two Hours Later=**~**

When the children first came in, it was slightly chaotic as all the volunteers tried to familiarize themselves with their responsibility, but now everything was running like a well-oiled machine.

"Great job organizing this my dear" the elderly priest said to the girl who was holding a clipboard and looking rather like her antagonist at the moment, minus the glasses.

"Thanks Fr." she said, as she genuinely smiled at the hosts' interactions with the little kids.

As she expected, Hikaru, Kaoru, Hunny, and Mori were all comfortably playing with the impoverished children, so much so that it was hard at times to figure out if the kids were having more fun or if the hosts were. Tamaki truly shocked Michelle though. She just expected him to be playing around with the kids as well, and he did to begin with, but when he saw a little child crying at being pushed aside by another kid, the host king actually performed a small magic trick in order to make her smile again. Seeing that he could do magic, Tamaki was now surrounded by a group of kids who were begging him to perform one trick after another, much to his delight as well. Once the priest left the overseeing strawberry blonde to talk with one of the foster parents, Kyouya approached the girl.

"I'm quite impressed at your level of organization" he snidely said as he found it rather humorous at how much she currently looked like he does at the club.

"Psh, this was nothing to plan in comparison to the events that I used to plan back home" Michelle nonchalantly said as she heard her cell phone ring.

"If you would excuse me for a moment" the girl said as she reached for her cell and turned slightly away from the raven haired boy. He started to walk away when he heard Michelle exclaim, "Oh, you're here! That's great, come on in" to the person she was on the phone with.

Having peaked his curiosity, he turned around to face the now elated girl, awaiting an explanation for her excitement.

"Who was that?" he disinterestedly said as she hung up, even though his curiosity was fully rearing up.

"Oh, you're going to love this Kyouya" she said as she grabbed onto his left elbow and dragged him to the hall entrance,

"C'mon".

Upon reaching the front door, he saw a news crew come in, video cameras, reporter, and all. His eyes widened a little as he realized that the girl really did know what she was doing.

"Now, I know I should feel a little bad that I especially asked you guys to come here today in order to stir up more interest in the charity, but I really do think that this will be a wonderful human interest story and a great way to show the true character of you guys." She said as the two hosts approached the reporter. "The other hosts are such sweethearts and it'll be nice to show the community just how much those with wealthy still think about those without," the female host said as she happily approached the reporter.

Within a few minutes the crew was set up and started filming little segments of all the children, the workers, and especially all the hosts. At first, Kyouya refused to participate, but to his great shock, Michelle was able to convince him. She merely reminded him about the new children's wing that his father was adding to their Kyoto hospital and how great it would be for an Ootori to be seen working with children at this time.

There was one odd thing that Kyouya observed,

'_Michelle made sure that the news crew would not film her in any way. Why would she do that if she was the one in charge of this day? Shouldn't she want the credit for hosting such an event?_

'_Something is still definitely odd about this girl. Maybe I shouldn't give up on the enigma just yet.'_

Hey all! I'm back again! Thank you as always for following my story and supporting me, it truly means so much. Also, thank you Eleanor for your kind comment, I'm glad to know that I'm not being hated for writing Haruhi out of the story ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little chapter and I always truly love any and all feedback! See Ya Later!


	32. Media Reports & Family ReactionChapter32

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Thirty-Two: Media Reports and Family Reactions**

**~**=Ootori Household=**~ **

"Kyouya! What is the meaning of this?"

Yoshiro Ootori barked at his youngest son who was currently standing in front of him.

It was Monday morning and before Kyouya could leave his estate to go to Ouran, he was summoned to his father's study, an always less desirable way to start the morning. The chilled room he was standing in was overly dark with mahogany wooden bookshelves and desk, black carpeting, maroon walls, and a richly embroidered window shade that blocked most light out. Since the window directly behind Yoshiro was covered, the main sources of light came from the patriarch's computer and a desk lamp that shone upon the papers in front of him, papers that included today's edition of the news.

After Kyouya straightened up from his bow to his father, Yoshiro did not wait for his son to question the purpose of the summons; instead he threw the newspaper at the grey eyed boy.

"Well?" the older man re-asked and waited impatiently for an answer.

Sure enough, on the front page there was a large photo of all the male hosts interacting with the children from Heavenly Savior's toy drive the day before. Above the photo the headline read Japan's Wealthy, Philanthropic Youth do the City Proud.

So many thoughts flooded Kyouya's mind at that moment. '_I've seen father taking many photo opportunities that were blatantly used for good public relations, but now he's mad that I have done the same? No, he can't be upset that I did that, especially with the new Ootori Children's Ward opening. But then again, his temper can turn against me without any provoking, it just depends on if he had a good morning already or not'_, the raven haired boy debated in his mind, trying to figure out whether he should take credit for the news crew or not.

Veering on the safe side, Kyouya decided to pin all of this on Michelle, just in case.

"I'm deeply sorry if that outing offended you oto-sama, but the hosts and I were participating in that event due to the insistence of our newest member. I assure you, it will not happen again" the boy coolly said as he remained in a deep bow for his entire excuse.

"Sorry?" his father barked, "you say sorry?"

The next sound from his father visibly threw the boy because he could have sworn his father was laughing. Feeling bold enough to look at his father once again, Kyouya cautiously looked up and saw that Yoshio was indeed laughing.

"You stupid boy. Why would you apologize for great advertisement?"

'_Shit, I should have taken the credit for this one_' the grey eyed boy thought as he straightened up and listened to his father's praises.

"You can't buy good public relations like this Kyouya! My phone has been ringing off the hook all morning with people wishing to donate to the children's wing, requesting to purchase Ootori products, and of course news stations asking me to comment on my 'big-hearted' son. This is one of the best moves you have done in a while and you tell me it's due to another member of the club that you have with the Suoh heir? Which one is he?"

Seeing that he had the full attention of his father, Kyouya answered, "_her_ name is Michelle Rose Warner, oto-sama".

"Huh, a girl?" his father asked as he snatched the paper out of his son's hands, "I don't see any girl your age in this photo".

"That's because she refused to be filmed by the news crew" Kyouya said in order to stop his father from scowering over the photo in vain.

"She didn't want to be in the photo? That's odd…" the elder man said. "Wait, I think I know of the girl you're talking about. Yuzuru (Tamaki's father) told me about having to admit a girl under unusual circumstances and I remember her having an American name."

Kyouya's eyes widened at the fact that his father might know more about the mysterious girl, but he knew better than to pry into his father's knowledge.

"Well, no matter son", Yoshio said as he stood up and started to walk by his son, stopping in the process to place his left hand on Kyouya's right shoulder. As he authoritatively squeezed the boy's shoulder, so hard that the shadow king had to stifle a wince, the older man dictated, "That girl is very useful to have around for publicity reasons, especially if she had enough foresight to plan such a profitable event for this family. I want you to do whatever you can to get close to her. She could be useful to us in the future if she continues to bring this level of business in. Am I understood?"

After he had said this, not even waiting for a response from his son, the Ootori head walked out of the room leaving a stunned Kyouya in the room. Moments later, Tachibana peeked into the room and reminded his young charge that he would be late for school if he didn't leave now. Realizing that his driver was right, the raven haired boy allowed himself to be escorted to his limo, thinking about the latest order that he received from his father.

'_This is what I get for telling him the truth that she was the cause of the pictures. Not only don't I get any credit for the event, credit I could have easily claimed for myself, but now I have to befriend that troublesome, frustrating, annoyance. Wait…'_ he thought as he drove past Michelle's house and an evil plan formed in his head, '_not only did oto-sama admit that Suoh-sama had to accept her under 'unusual' circumstances, but if I am now ordered to get closer to her, I can openly use all the reaches of the Ootori power. That means that I might finally get to the end of this problem with her'_ he thought with an evil smile as they pulled up to Ouran.

'_This could all be worth it then'._

**~**=Hitachiin Household=**~**

"Honey, you have to look at this"

a cheerful female voice said as she stopped eating her breakfast in order to beckon over to her husband.

This week was a rare week for the Hitachiin household because both of the twins' parents were in town instead of traveling the world, like they normally must do for work.

"Is that who I think it is?" Yuzuha asked her husband as she pointed at the front page picture of her newspaper, but in particular at a blob that looked rather like one of her sons.

"I think that's Hikaru!" her husband said in shock as he scanned the headline to find out why their son was on the front page.

"That one's Kaoru" the older twin said as he walked over to his seat where his breakfast was prepared and waiting for him. "I'm over there, buried by a bunch of kids who were trying to stop me from tickling them" Hikaru said as he leaned over their shoulders to point to where he was in the photo.

He silently began eating his food while his parents just looked at each other in shock, visibly puzzled that their sons actually went to a charity event, especially one with little kids at it. Finding his voice first, the twins' father asked, "Was that something Tamaki set up?"

"Nah", Kaoru said, finally entering the kitchen, rubbing his eyes in order to get the last remnants of sleep out, "Michelle's the one who put it together."

"Michelle?" his older brother asked with his mouth full, curious as to why his brother dropped the honorific –sempai.

"Yeah, Michelle. She said that we're close enough friends that I don't need to be so formal around her" Kaoru responded nonchalantly as he got up to grab one of the oranges from the top of the refrigerator.

"Which one is she?" Yuzuha asked as she quickly scanned the photo again.

"She's not on there" Kaoru said, "but she's the newest member of the host club".

Finishing what his brother started explaining, Hikaru cut in and said, "She's been with us since last month and she kinda forced us to attend that charity thing that she was organizing." As he finished he shot a glare at his brother, completely jealous that not only was Kaoru was getting closer to the girl, but he was jealous at the fact that she hadn't told him that he could stop using the honorific.

"I don't know if I'd say 'forced'" Kaoru said as he stressed the word forced, "I probably would have gone anyway, I mean we didn't have anything else important scheduled yesterday."

At that comment, all eyes were on the younger boy in confusement. Yesterday his favorite band was in town for a 'one afternoon only' concert on their tour and he had been talking about it for months_._

'_How could he say that?'_ His brother thought, _'It's not often that Maroon 5 comes into town and he listens to them non-stop on his CD player. Who the hell is this girl that she can get Kaoru to willingly drop his front row tickets just so he could spend time with a bunch of little brats?'_

Instead of scowling at Kaoru's latest comment like their son was, the Hitachiin parents just looked at each other and beamed a knowing smile. Without needing to say it out loud, they both felt great joy at the fact that their youngest son was beginning to expand his horizons. Both of them were so proud of him and they both desired to know more about this miracle worker girl, but they didn't ask any more questions because they could tell that Hikaru was less than pleased with his brother's growth in character.

'_Our son has found a person to love besides his brother' _their father thought with a smile as he noticed the funny, love-sick look on Kaoru's face.

'_I pray that this Michelle continues to help our sons_' Yuzuha thought as she and her husband happily continued with their silent breakfast.

Hey everyone! It's me again :) Sorry this chapter is so short, but it's much needed. Thank you once again to everyone who reads this story and follows along with all the chapters, you're the driving force behind me. However, special thanks are needed to the person who was the driver of the driving force for this chapter, MEEE!

As always, comments, suggestions, complaints, anything really, are always appreciated and I'll start working on the next chapter ASAP

See ya real soon!


	33. Hide and Seek Chapter 33

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Thirty-Three: Hide and Seek**

"98…99…100!"

Tamaki shouted excitedly as he turned away from the tree that he was leaning against to steady himself as he counted off while blindfolded. With a swift and dramatic move, the bubbly blonde removed the fabric around his eyes and exclaimed,

"ready or not, HERE I COME!"

as he started to somewhat spin in circles, trying to figure out which way to search first.

It was the host's day off and rather than using the free time to get caught up with her homework or going home to help Fr. Kichi around the church, Michelle got roped into teaching and playing "commoner" games with the hosts. She never expected to be participating in games like Red Rover, Mother May I, and Hide and Seek while she was in high school, but with the childish hosts, apparently anything is possible.

However, unlike the day that she was literally dragged to the zoo, the strawberry blonde didn't mind sticking around with the boys anymore and since they were playing competitive games, her natural competitive instincts were kicking into high gear and she was currently completely playing to win.

On the other end of the spectrum, Kyouya was poorly "hiding" behind a rock. He was basically sitting behind a large grey stone with his legs sticking out in front of him and with the top of his head visible over the giant object. He had too much work to attend to, to bother with such childish and trivial games, but he was not immune to Tamaki's pleading for his involvement in the game.

After he heard his best friend shout "here I come", the be-speckled boy sat upright a little more so he could be even more visible. He definitely wanted Tamaki to find him quickly so he could retreat to the tree that they dubbed the "safe tree" and could pull out his notebook once again.

"FOUND YOU!"

the tall blonde screeched as he elaborately pointed at Kyouya, revealing his "hiding" spot.

"Darn, I thought I had a truly hidden location" the raven haired boy falsely said as he exhibited his disappointment.

The tall blonde didn't notice the obviously lack of enthusiasm from his best friend because he was so excited that he had found his first hider. He took an overly dramatic pose, prematurely dubbed himself the "King of Seekers", and loudly warned everyone else in the game that he would find them in no time at all so they should just give up at that point. Since Tamaki was too cocky from his first find, he didn't notice Kyouya happily slink over to the "safe tree" so he'd be away from the current nonsense of the host club.

The twins were crouching nearby behind two bushes and they were grinning evilly at their smug boss. They had worked out a devious plan that would frustrate their tono by never staying in the same place too long. The little devils also set up several traps all over the area for the host king to fall into. After Tamaki had finished his boastful rant, the redheads held their breath as the blonde took a step forward and headed in the direction of the first pratfall that had been set up for him.

Hikaru and Kaoru left two tufts of red fibers that from a distance looked exactly like their hair, and as soon as a person got closer to the area in order to examine it, a trigger system was set up that would release a bucket load of water balloons upon the victim. Falling right into their trap, Tamaki slowly crept towards the tufts before…

"AHHHHH!"

A scream echoed throughout the courtyard as the tall blonde was bombarded with a barrage of water balloons, causing him to become completely soaked.

"WHEREAREYOUDEMONTWINS?!"

He shouted exasperatedly only to be met with a pre-recorded soundtrack of the twins' cackle that seemed to come from all around him, leaving the snickering redheads to retreat to another hiding spot.

Michelle couldn't help but giggle at the fuming Tamaki as he ran off in the opposite direction, only to fall victim to another trap.

'_How the heck did they set so many traps up in only a hundred seconds? Yeash, those guys are total geniuses!'_ she thought with admiration at the mischiefness of her two friends. '_One of these days I gotta get them to let me help them out. I miss pulling pranks on people so much and they've got a genius system set up here, not to mention the perfect mark_.'

Hunny and Mori were perched on a tree nearby, somewhere between the "safe tree" and the girl host's hiding spot. Hunny looked absolutely comfortable on his tiny perch, but his tall cousin looked slightly awkward in his position due to his massive size and the relatively tiny branch that he was lying on. The two cousins were so high up that they didn't need to worry about being quiet, meaning that they could have a conversation as they watched their friends from the canopy of the courtyard.

"Takashi?"

the little blonde chirped, only receiving a small questioning grunt from his cousin. "It's really nice to see Mi-chan getting so comfortable with us, isn't it?" he questioned sweetly gesturing to her crouching form under them.

"Yeah" his taciturn cousin responded, truly agreeing with Hunny's statement.

"She's super nice and I really like having her around. She was so shy when she first joined and it took us a while to treat us as friends, but I think she's having as much fun as Kao-Chan and Hika-Chan right now. Also, have you noticed how Kao-Chan looks at her and smiles when they talk?"

Thinking about his little companion's words before he grunted his agreement, Mori reflected on all of the times that the strawberry blonde and the younger twin spent time together and were joking about something or another. He also recalled the time that Kaoru turned bright red with happiness and embarrassment when Michelle asked him to be the one to help her with the costume changes and to do the dialogue part with Yuki for "El Tango Roxanne" in the last host club performance.

"It's clear that he really really likes her. It's so nice to see him spending time with someone besides Hika-Chan and Mi-Chan interacts so well with him. I think they are very very close to being the bestest of friends and I think that Kao-Chan actually might like her more than that. I just don't think he knows how to act on that feeling yet or how to tell Hika-Chan that he cares for someone besides the two of them. But he's gonna need to figure that out soon or else someone else might realize that he likes her as well" the little blonde coyly said as he looked at the face of his beloved cousin.

"Yeah," the tall boy stated in his deep and monotone voice, "Kyouya also treats her differently".

"Yep, I bet that's confusing him lots. It's normal for him to pretend that he doesn't like any of us, but he really goes out of his way to show that he doesn't like her. I've never seen him try to show his dislike for someone as much as he does with Mi-Chan, so I think that he really really likes her too. I mean, Kao-Chan already is showing that he can care about someone besides his brother and that there is a world outside themselves, which I've never seen before. But, I'm also glad that Kyo-Chan likes her since I think she can help him learn to just have fun and not be so business minded all the time. He needs that." the little boy said as he smiled a huge and childish-like grin.

Mori nodded his head as the two cousins were snapped out of their conversation to hear Tamaki screech once again as he found himself covered in some sort of whipped cream this time.

"YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY ANYTHING WITHOUT DESTROYING EVERYTHING AROUND YOU DO YOU YOU DEVIL TWINS?!"

rang out through the courtyard as all the current players started to giggle out loud at the wails of the host king_._

'_This is going to be a long game, but man, it's going to be fun'_ Michelle thought as Tamaki finally caught sight of one of the twins, causing him to sprint full speed at the cackling redhead.

"This is going to be an interesting year," Mori said quietly at the same time because he noticed that Kyouya looked at Michelle for a second before he dove back into his notebook.

"For sure," Hunny chirped in reply with an ear to ear grin.

Hey everyone! Sorry that I keep taking such long breaks in between. I'm studying abroad this semester, so it will be a bit more difficult, but I do find myself wandering to class and thinking about this story, so it's still definitely alive. It's a short chapter I know, but I love interweaving the original story when I can. Who do you think that Michelle should be getting closer to?

See ya all soon! (Yes, I actually mean it this time)


	34. Planning for the Next Gig Chapter 34

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor do I own the rights to the Disney movies that I mention in this fanfic

**Chapter Thirty-Four: Planning for the Next Gig**

"Alright, listen up people" Tamaki said as he addressed the entire host club which was gathered around a large planning table in the third music room. "We've got the first ball of the year coming up in one week, so we need to get to work people!" the host king exclaimed as he extended his pointer finger in the air dramatically, as if he was really gearing them up to start work on the ball that very second.

"Yes, we need to finally start planning the ball" a cool voice said as he ignored his flamboyant best friend, "Have you decided upon a theme yet Tamaki?"

At Kyouya's question, all of Tamaki's confidence and joy dissipated as he sat down and dejectedly muttered,

"Not yet… I mean we can't do anything winter themed again, we can't do anything St. Valentine's related, and I don't want to have a tropical ball because I don't want to encourage the young maidens to show up in the un-lady-like attire that compliments that theme. Hmm…" he pouted as put his head in his hand to ponder this problem.

At that moment, the female host and the younger twin just looked at each other and shared a devilish smirk, knowing this was the perfect opportunity to bring up their own plan for the ball.

"Oh, it's too bad that poor Tamaki can't think of a theme for the ball" Michelle said with an overdramatic sigh as the two started their grandly planned scheme to get their idea embraced by the host club's prince.

"I know, it's so sad to see that our boss has finally run out of ideas, and in the prime of his youth no less" Kaoru said to add to Tamaki's dejection. The beginnings of their ploy, in order to make him more open to taking up the plan that they were about to introduce, were going according to plan because the amethyst eyed boy was intently listening to the two's banter.

"Oooh, that is sad, tragic even" Michelle said, taking their little play quite melodramatically. In her mind she was channeling her inner Flotsam and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid and she was doing quite a good job with her fellow 'eel', Kaoru.

As they had expected and planned, the simple minded host club prince started to whimper at his own uselessness and began to despair. Noticing that something odd was going on with his annoyance and Kaoru, and not wanting Tamaki to sink too far into his pit of self-loathing since it would merely prolong the meeting and he had business to attend to later on that day, Kyouya took the bait instead of the intended target of the ploy and he stated in his snide monotone voice,

"And I suppose with the comments that you are making, the two of you have some sort of _brilliant_ plan that will work for everything, from food, to entertainment and decorations". He fixed his glasses as he glared at the two plotting teens and said,

"Do tell" he seethed.

Smirking that they got the limelight they needed, even if it came from her antagonist, Michelle started off by saying,

"Simple. Two words, Mardi Gras"

she said as she elaborately spread her hands in front of her face as if to highlight the invisible words. The whole table was silent for a moment and she and Kaoru started to worry at the silence. Before they could really worry, they could have sworn that they could actually see a light bulb turn on over Tamaki's head as the idea finally registered in his slow mind. Not needing anymore encouragement to continue, Michelle started up again and said,

"the decorations will be easy, just decorate the place to look like the French Quarter in New Orleans or like a bayou swamp, whichever you prefer, the color scheme will be green, purple, and gold, the music will be jazz, the food will be Cajun, and for the entertainment portion of the evening…" She paused as she turned to her partner in crime, "Since Hikaru and Kaoru were the inspiration for the game, I'll let Kaoru tell you our little plan" and with a smile, she passed the attention over to the redheaded twin.

"Well, we're going to have a full scale version of 'Which One's Hikaru', except it will be 'Which One's Michelle'. There will be an even number of boy and girl contestants and the boys will all wear the same outfits, the same masks, and have the same hairdo as the other boys, just as the girls will be wearing the same costumes and hairdos as the other girls. The goal of the evening will be to figure out which one in the group is Michelle" he finished with a smile.

Always being the first to nit-pick, Kyouya spoke up and asked superiorly, "Well as soon as the 'contestants' speak, won't it be obvious who Michelle is?"

"Yes,"

the female host responded, not at all surprised that her antagonist was trying to tear down the wonderful plan that she and Kaoru had been working on for days,

"That's why the contestants will not be able to speak. But before you ask how our guests will be able to figure it out, all of the contestants must intermingle with the guests and dance with them for the first two hours of the party. Just because someone's not speaking, doesn't mean that the person can't still interact and entertain."

Finishing off where his partner ended, Kaoru spoke up and said, "And, after the first two hours, voting will begin. A couple of us will tally the answers, the contestants will line up on stage, and Tamaki will announce the number of guesses that each contestant received. After the announcement of the numbers, Michelle will reveal herself..."

"and we'll announce who won," the female host chimed in as she finished her friend's sentence.

"What'll they win?" Tamaki and Hunny simultaneously asked, as both of them were beginning to get really excited about this grand game.

"Well", Michelle said, "At the end of the ball there will be a grand finale performance, by yours truly. It'll be a medley of well known New Orleans and Jazz songs as well as some songs from Disney's The Princess and the Frog and the winners will be a part of the show".

Noticing that Kyouya was about to make another comment, the blue eyed girl turned to him and authoritatively cut him off before he could begin, "I've already talked through the logistics of this with Asagi and his ballroom dance club and we have all prepared a grand performance that will include a spot for one winner or eighty winners, just in case".

Inwardly shocked that the two hosts had put so much planning into an idea that might not even be accepted, the grey eyed boy pushed up his glasses again and looked down at his notebook. He was completely unable to come up with a reason to turn down their plan and he absolutely hated that feeling. Because something always irked the raven haired boy whenever he was not the one in control and lately Michelle had been taking more and more control of the other host club members, he was not happy at all with the way the meeting was going today, even if he thought that their idea was actually a good one.

"Well, What'd you think?"

Michelle and Kaoru said in complete unison, much to everyone's surprise. While Tamaki was seriously debating all of the concepts that were just thrown his way, Hikaru glared evilly at the female host.

'_How dare she just come in and get so close to my brother'_, he thought as he wished that his hazel eyes could really shoot daggers at Michelle. '_Only I can speak at the exact same time and finish Kaoru's sentences, and SHE'S NOT ME! I thought she was cool for a little while there, but now she's only taking away my brother from me and that is unacceptable. I've GOT to get them apart and Kaoru back to where he belongs, with ME'_, the redhead finished thinking when Tamaki jumped up from his seat and sprinted over to Michelle and Kaoru.

Giving them a gigantic bear hug from behind, the tall blonde shrieked in their ears, "You guys are BRILLIANT! Everyone", he said addressing all the hosts, "We will now all start to work on helping Kaoru and my beloved daughter with their wonderful idea for the upcoming ball."

When they saw Tamaki and Hunny start to bubble about the Mardi Gras ball, Kaoru and Michelle shot each other a triumphant smile and started to plot their game, completely eager to start the preparations.

'_Hmm, wait a second. This turn of events might actually mean that I don't have to lose endless nights of sleep planning this if __she__ and Kaoru came up with the idea_, 'Kyouya thought as he slunk away from the table to return to his pineapple laptop. '_If I want to get out of any aspect of the planning, I can just shove it onto them stating that it was their fault we are doing a Mardi Gras ball_', he thought as he smirked,

'_Yes I can definitely make this work to my advantage_.'

Hi Everyone!

I actually had a real slow work week this week, which is nice, so I got a chance to update so quickly! Sorry that these last two chapters have been so short, but the next one, the one that will actually describe the Mardi Gras Ball, will def be a long one. Also, I need to apologize for not thanking everyone who has been supporting this story! You guys have no idea how much it means to me to see story favs, alerts, and especially comments! Thank you for bearing with my lack of steady releases, but I, as always, hope you are enjoying this story as much as I am :)

Hope to hear from you guys and I'll be writing again soon


	35. Paper Faces on Parade Chapter 35

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, Phantom of the Opera, or any Disney characters

**Chapter Thirty-Five: Paper Faces on Parade**

"Alright, is everyone ready?"

Kaoru asked five gentlemen and five ladies who were all wearing the same ornate, gold and purple porcelain Venetian/Mardi Gras masks. The ten boys and girls were with the younger twin in one of the side rooms of the main ballroom at the elite academy of Ouran. It was the night of the first ball of the season and after a couple hours of making sure that all the masked people were dressed, styled alike, and instructed about the rules of the game, the ten people all gave Kaoru a thumbs up to his earlier question.

With that confirmation, the hazel eyed boy ushered the contestants out of the room and to their starting positions on the side wings of the grand staircase that led into the ballroom. He could hear his tono's grand and overly poetic welcoming spiel, but he was too busy admiring the work that he had just done to pay attention to what Tamaki was actually saying. The young Hitachiin looked around at the masked people with a large smile on his face at all of the costumes that he and his brother had worked so diligently on designing.

'_I wish Hikaru could've been with me to help get everyone ready, but that would've ruined our game if he knew who was who,_'

the young boy thought to himself as he recalled why he was forced to be separated from his brother for the past few hours. He was truly saddened about being away from Hikaru, but now that he was staring at the final product, he was glad he had done so and was truly excited and nervous about what was to come.

The girls in the line all had a long, strawberry blonde wig which was styled into an elaborate half up, half down hairdo and all of their dresses consisted of a rich green velvet bodice, gold lamé off the shoulder ¾ length sleeves, a full royal purple satin floor length ball gown skirt with gold coins sewn in a draping pattern on the center of the material, and matching purple long gloves that disappeared into their gold sleeves. The guys who were participating in the game and assembling on the opposite side of the staircase had medium length chestnut brown hair, all styled the same way, and their outfit comprised of a long sleeve emerald green satin shirt, royal purple velvet pants, gloves, and a tie, complete with a gold lamé vest and stripes on the sides of the pants' legs. As mentioned before, they all wore the same mask, masks that were made to indicate that they were contestants in the evening's game, a contest which challenged the guests to figure out which one of them was the female host.

The only people who knew the answer to that question were the eleven people in that room. In fact, not even the other host members knew which one Michelle was masquerading as and that was currently really bothering Hikaru since he made a bet with his brother about it. A couple of days ago, the older twin confronted Kaoru and tried to make an ultimatum in an attempt to separate Kaoru and Michelle. Not wanting to lose his brother, but also not wanting to lose the only other person he really cared about, the younger one made a bet with his brother concerning tonight's game. The bet consisted of this; if Hikaru can tell which one is Michelle, Kaoru is only allowed to interact with Michelle during club hours and only when necessary outside of the club, a fate that the younger boy would rather do almost anything than have to conform to. On the other hand, if Hikaru fails to guess correctly, he has to not only promise to never try to separate the two friends, but he must also agree to invite Michelle along whenever he and his brother go out.

While Tamaki was still excitedly welcoming the host club's guests and joyfully bubbling on, explaining the rules of this evening's game to a room filled with equally excited guests, the older twin had other things on his mind, namely his plan to keep things the way they are. '_And once I win, I'll make sure that Michelle-sempai never comes near us again. Kaoru is mine and mine alone'_.

'_I won't lose, especially not with so much at stake'_,

Hikaru smugly thought at the same time his twin was joyfully examining all the costumes.

"And here comes the masked court of contestants now!" the tall blonde host announced as he grandly extended his hand to the side of the grand staircase of the main ballroom, shaking the twins from their own thoughts as they and the rest of the guests held their breaths while the ten masked students walked to the center of the staircase. Once the contestants glided to their positions on either side of the staircase, men on the right and women on the left, everyone in the room started to excitedly chat and began to make their own guesses. The young women and men had practiced the entrance before the ball, when the room was empty, so their entrance was truly as grand and precise as the host king's announcement of them.

Noting to himself the quality of the professional work of the outfits and the elegant entrance, but not wanting to admit that he was actually impressed, Kyouya then spoke up and explained the voting process,

"In two hour's time, we ask that you submit your written final guess to the booth at the end of the stage and at that time, the royal court will make their way down to the grand stage" he said while motioning to the large platform that was located across from the staircase. "There we will tally the number of votes for each contestant and once Michelle has been uncovered, we will announce the grand winners and they will join her back stage to get ready for the final show."

Having to speak a little louder over the excited chatter that amplified at the last comment about receiving a chance to perform with the female host, Tamaki then took over from his best friend and wished everyone luck while announcing that the game had finally begun. When Hikaru saw the ten contestants walk down from the staircase and intermingle with the guests, the mischievous twin smirked happily,

'_What idiots, it's obvious since they included guys in this game that she's dressed as one. That instantly knocks out half of the odds in one blow_.'

It was not too surprising of a concept to those who really knew Michelle, but Hikaru was right, the blue eyed host was indeed dressed as one of the guys. She had longed to be dressed up as a guy for months now. But whenever cosplay ideas came up and she made the suggestion, Tamaki immediately shot her down, stating that she was a young maiden and she would dress as such. During one of their private planning meetings concerning the ball, she told her closest friend and partner in crime for this event that her two favorite Halloween costumes of all time were a Zorro costume that ended up convincing all of her neighbors she was a guy, and a Captain Jack Sparrow costume that she wore when she and her embassy friends trick-or-treated around Embassy row in DC. However, Kaoru and his partner both knew that it would a real challenge to pick her out of the line-up, even if someone figured out that she was dressed as a man. Taking plenty of acting classes when she was younger, Michelle knew how to completely change everything about her demeanor in order to become someone else. And because she was still basically practicing this skill every day, in order to keep up a mask that covered important information about her past life in the States, her technique was truly refined and well honed. Anyway, most people would be looking for some sort of tell-tale habit, but unlike most people, the female host was well aware of little ticks that she usually did when she wasn't thinking and in times like this, when she had to hide who she was, she easily stopped them.

For the next two hours, the entire room was filled with the excitement of the game. All of the masked students silently interacted and danced with the guests, spreading out as much as possible and constantly rotating in order to give everyone a fair chance at winning. Michelle was having so much fun acting like a guy, she almost didn't want the game to end. She had truly missed bowing to the ladies and dancing the male part as she used to do when she was part of the ethnic dance group that she belonged to in America.

Not only was Michelle loving every second of the game, but Kaoru was having a ball watching while not only the guests were trying to figure out who Michelle was, but it was also priceless seeing the same puzzled looks on the hosts' faces. Apparently Hikaru and Kaoru weren't the only hosts who made a bet on who'd be able to figure out who Michelle was. Indeed, Tamaki, Kyouya (who reluctantly was forced to participate in a game that had no benefit in the end), Hunny, and Mori all had a friendly, non-wagered bet with the female host that they'd be able pick her out from the group.

In order to make sure that all of the other contestants of the game fully did their best job trying to confuse the guests, Kaoru and Michelle gave them an extra incentive to do well in the game. The contestant of each gender that got the most votes would receive any item on the host club's auction page as a reward. While that incentive worked quite well, Michelle still thought it was a ridiculous prize.

After the two hours were over with, Tamaki called for everyone's attention and the contestants all moved onto the stage for the final line-up.

'_I so can't wait to hear how many people thought that someone else was me'_

Michelle thought as she outwardly showed no emotions, not that the mask would allow people to see that much, but she still didn't want to seem nervous or excited through her body language. The anticipation was making her so excited that she could just dive into the ballot boxes right then and there to count the votes herself, but that would definitely give the illusion away and it wasn't time yet. She had a good feeling that not too many people thought that she was, well her, so that's what kept her calm. Trying to avoid dwelling on the anticipation of the results, the currently chestnut brown girl reminisced on that Halloween a few years ago when she dressed up as Zorro and was called a 'cute little boy' more times than she could count.

All eyes, minus Kyouya's, were glued to the stage as the last contestant took his position with all the rest and the music died, allowing the announcing host's voice to be heard better. As if Tamaki really needed that. Regardless, after grandly thanking everyone for their participation in the evening's game, Tamaki rambled on for a while before he majestically announced the results of the contest. Almost everyone in the room was waiting with baited breath as the host king began to announce the tally.

"And without further ado,"

the host prince said excitedly as he gestured off stage to where Hikaru and Mori were tallying up the votes, "the results of 'Which one is Michelle'".

Tamaki, ever the single and simple minded person that he was, thought that Michelle was dressed up as a girl because she was a girl. He was constantly reminding her that it was of course only proper for a young lady such as Michelle to dress as her gender, so he was sure that his fatherly advice had gotten through to her. Even though he knew of another girl who dressed like a guy and didn't see the same clear cuts in gender as he did, the host king didn't expect the current female host to do the same. As he started to read the results by listing the number of votes that each of the contestants' received, he began with listing the votes of the females. When he got to the girl who he guessed was Michelle, he smiled even wider as he saw that she had received the most votes of the females.

'_See, quite a few people agree with me as well. I know Michelle when I see her'_

the host king inwardly gloated as he paused while Hunny wrote the number of votes that the girl received on the elegantly ornate white board that was behind her.

'_I know I got this one,'_

Hikaru also proudly thought when his boss finally got around to announcing the guesses for the male contestants. His guess was the second one to be tallied, and was not one of the more popular guesses, thus confirming his guess and causing him to join along with his tono in inwardly bragging about his observation skills.

'_Now I can get my brother back and away from her'_, the older twin thought, happy that he got rid of the problem as easily as he had.

When all of the numbers were on the boards, everyone in the room could see that all in all, most of the guesses were pretty evenly spread out, with two exceptions. The first exception was the 'popular choice' girl, who even Tamaki voted for. But on the flip side, there was one contestant who only received two guesses.

'_Wow, he did a really bad job acting like Mi-chan'_, Hunny sadly thought as he indicated the small amount of votes behind the boy's head on the white board.

Finally, since all of the numbers were up on the boards, it was time for the grand reveal.

Kaoru and Michelle had it set up that only one person would be singing the reveal song, 'Masquerade' from Phantom of the Opera, but all of the contestants would pretend to be singing, until they got to the line "You can fool any friend who ever knew you". At that line, only Michelle would be singing as she stepped forward and removed her mask. As the song started, everyone waited so silently for the strawberry blonde girl to step forward and remove her mask that you could have heard a pin drop. Finally relieving the room of the tension, the boy with the least amount of guesses, stepped forward and grandly removed 'his' mask. Jaws dropped, gasps escaped from people's mouths, and Hikaru and Tamaki, who were off to the side, fell to their knees in despair that they had gotten it wrong. Truly loving the reactions from everyone, Michelle and Kaoru looked at each other and smiled brightly knowing that they did a really good job in not only hiding her identity, but they also had provided a night of quality entertainment and a truly successful game.

Once she let her reveal sink in for a few moments, Michelle couldn't hold her curiosity in anymore. She had to know who actually figured out who she was! Being in sync with his close friend, but not knowing it, Kaoru was also completely interested in figuring out who was clever enough to see through their charade. Since he didn't see his tono move from his stunned position to continue his hosting duties, the younger twin walked backstage to find those two ballots himself. Staving off his curiosity because he knew that his partner would have killed him if he saw the results before she did, Kaoru walked on stage and picked up the wireless mic that was by Tamaki.

"I'm sure that the two people who correctly guessed who Michelle was, know who they are, but I know I'm quite interested to see who these perceptive people are",

the younger twin said as he saw that Michelle was approaching him so she could see the results for herself as well.

"They are…"

he said, adding a dramatic pause, "Gakuen, Yukina and…

Ooto…Kyouya?!"

he questioned with a half squeak of surprise as he double checked the paper and the room roared with applause at the two winners. With the announcement that he was one of the two winners, the shy brunette was ushered onto the stage by all those who stood around him so he could join Michelle and Kaoru in the spotlight.

'_I was expecting Yuki to get it right, 'specially since he and I danced together and I'm sure he'd be able to figure it out by watching the way I moved on the floor, but Kyouya?!'_

Michelle thought to herself as she and Kaoru looked questioningly at the calm and collected vice president who was nonchalantly smirking at them.

"Well, anyway", Kaoru said snapping out of his shock quicker that Michelle, "That means that Yuki and Kyouya are our two winners, but since Kyouya's a member of the club and therefore unable to claim his prize, you all will have the amazing treat of seeing Yuki reprise his role as Michelle's musical partner in the big New Orleans Extravaganza which will be in about two more hours. Thank you all so much for participating in this evening's game and I know that I am speaking on behalf of all of the hosts, that I hope you all enjoyed this game as much as Michelle and I have",

he said, putting his arm around his partner's shoulder as she nodded in agreement with a large grin of pure delight from the fun masquerade. As soon as Yuki joined the two friends on stage, Michelle took his hand and the three grandly bowed to the applauding audience.

"Until the show, the music and buffet will keep going, so please continue to enjoy yourselves with my fellow host club members and do not hesitate to ask one of us for anything that will aid in your enjoyment of this evening," Michelle chimed in with her genuine million dollar smile, not forgetting to mention that they all needed to try her favorite dish of the evening before they disappeared, "Tiana's" famous beignets.

While Michelle and the two first years who were stepping off of the stage with her were all smiles as they excitedly discussed the upcoming performance, one person in the crowd was more than disappointed that he didn't win the game.

'_Damn it,'_

Hikaru thought angrily as he slunk back to the center of the ballroom to continue with his hosting duties, even though he really didn't feel like it at the moment,

'_Now I have to let Michelle-sempai into my life…' _ he thought as he had to use every ounce of willpower not to scowl at the costumer in front of him as he hastily and brutishly extended his arm to ask her to dance.

'_Shit, I can't get out of this can I?'_

Hey Everyone! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanza, and Happy New Year!

Sorry that I update so slowly, but I truly appreciate all of you who are still following the story! :D The title, for those of you who recognized it from Phantom, I realize that the characters in this story are wearing porcelain masks, but I still thought the quote was worth it. As always, thank you to all those who added this story to their update alert list, fav author, fav story, and so on, your actions really mean a lot to me.

TTFN!


	36. Life Becomes Normal Chapter 36

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Thirty-Six: Life Becomes Normal, For a Moment**

Two weeks have passed since the Mardi-Gras ball and everyone seems to be perfectly content with life. For the first time in a long time, there is finally no real tension among the hosts. Well, that isn't entirely true. While Hikaru seems to be more accepting of Michelle once again, not everyone is overjoyed at his acceptance of her. In fact, Tamaki was greatly bothered by the way the older twin now interacted with the female host. Being the type of person who wants everyone to get along, the host king did truly love the fact that his 'daughter' was no longer despised by the older twin,

'_but did it have to come at such a cost?_' the tall blonde thought as he was recovering from the latest prank that was thrust upon him.

After Kaoru explained his recent bet with his brother to Michelle and not wanting to be the one that got in between her close friend and his brother, especially since the boys shared such a strong bond with one another, the female host said that she was willing to include Hikaru in their little chats and jokes, even though she still thought the older twin could be utterly annoying and childish. Over the past few months, Michelle was amazed at the fact that the younger redhead had so quickly become such a close friend, someone that she might even call her best friend. In fact, at the moment he was only behind Wren and her mentor next-door neighbor in her heart. She was always glad to be around him whenever she could, and if it meant that she got to spend more time with Kaoru in a way that allowed him to be comfortable, she was willing to do almost anything, even if that "anything" meant that she had to hang around Hikaru. Because she had always admired their pranks from afar, Michelle reasoned that that would be the best way to gain Hikaru's acceptance of her, and man was she right. After getting over the awkwardness of planning their first prank, the inward mischievous tendencies that Michelle thought she locked away long ago, truly meshed with Hikaru's, much to Tamaki's dismay, but much to Kaoru's delight.

Since the hosts, minus the twins, knew that they had to be on their best behavior outside of their private time, there was no way that Michelle could join them in pranks against any other students, meaning that only host club members were eligible for the combined gags. True, they could prank the senior cousins or Kyouya, but after the twins told Michelle that Hunny was the top karate champion of Japan and that Mori was the top kendo champ, well, even though she thought that the two boys would be too nice to actually cause the pranksters any harm, none of them wanted to actually chance it. As for Kyouya, the twins were too afraid of him to really try anything and since Michelle enjoyed her one-on-one jabs more than any conglomerate prank against him anyway, they left the demon king alone.

That left only the poor Suoh heir as a target for the trio.

Once Tamaki got all of the shaving cream out of his eyes, the two cackling redheads sprinted away with the growling blonde hot on their trail. Michelle just stood where she was during the prank, knowing full well that Tamaki wasn't going to attack her for the prank because he didn't believe in hitting a girl. While that train of thought is usually considered to be chivalrous, the tomboy absolutely hated that sexist trait, but she knew him well enough at that point that she knew she would never be able to get Tamaki to change his mind on that. So between her true enjoyment of pulling pranks again and the fact that Tamaki's overly bubbly and sexist behavior was constantly getting on her nerves, the female host was truly happy that she got to join in on the twins' hijinx every once and a while. Since she finished all her host duties and because the prank was over with, the girl host walked over to the sofa that she left her grey Disneyland Paris messenger bag on and approached the shadow king's area before she left for home. Tamaki was convinced that the host club had been working too hard and that they needed a chance to rest and relax, meaning that he had another excursion planned for their upcoming four day weekend. Somehow, and the strawberry blonde didn't know if Kyouya had sneakily planted the idea in his simple minded best friends' head or if Tamaki actually planned this himself, Kyouya agreed to give the hosts free admission to his family's newest medical edition, an indoor water park. How an indoor water park was medicinal was beyond Michelle's imagination, but she didn't really care enough to get clarification, she just needed to double check with the grey eyed boy when her pick-up was going to be tomorrow. After she got the needed information and not dilly-dallying around the shadow king, not wanting the frustration today, she was out the door and on her way home.

She had no idea that something so bad was about to happen within the next twenty-four hours that her whole life would change once again.

**~**Across Town, In a Seedy Mansion Near Heavenly Savior**~**

The inside of the room was quite dark, with one man sitting in the middle of about fifty others. The fifty men were all down on their knees, obviously subservient to the man in the middle, and the entire room was silent. One of the men who was nearest to the man in the middle, a man whose dark shaggy hair blended into the black surroundings and whose eyes pierced the darkness with a glimmer of pure hatred, had recently knelt down after giving his boss rather distressing news. The poor lackey was uncontrollably shaking in his position, petrified that his tattoo covered, overly muscular boss would take out the anger that he was exhibiting on the poor man.

Yakunan Sendo, the raven haired boss who was sitting in the middle of his lackeys, is the Kanto branch Sendo clan chief. He is one of the most ruthless men in all of Japan and one of the most feared members of the Yakuza. Recently he had lost control of his older son, Tetsuya, when he turned against his father and joined the Kassanoda clan behind his father's back, and just moments ago, the trembling messenger told his boss the whereabouts of his youngest son.

"Young master Kurama has been visiting a girl over at the nearby church, Heavenly Savior, almost every day. It seems as if he goes to her for comforting after your 'lessons' with him"

the lackey explained, trying his hardest to come up with another word for the beatings that they all knew their boss gave the young boy as an attempt to prepare him for leadership of the clan one day. Indeed, Yakunan believed in ruling everyone with an iron fist and that included his own sons. It was that mindset of utter ruthlessness towards all that caused his older son to leave his clutches. After several moments of the most uncomfortable and scary silence that the henchmen could remember since Tetsuya cut off all ties from the clan, the boss spoke out with rage dripping from every word,

"We cannot allow that brat to seek out comfort from anyone. We've spent too much time living in the shadows of the Kassanoda family and soon they will no longer be the most powerful clan in the Kanto region, we will be. But that will only happen if I can get that damn brat of mine properly motivated to become the new head of the Sendo clan. I'm not taking any more chances with this kid. I will not have another failure like Tetsuya,"

he finished as his stomach turned at the thought that his oldest son turned against him to work for such a kind-hearted, sentimental weakling as Ritsu Kassanoda. Finding the courage to speak out, his right hand man, a tall brunette by the name of Burakku, spoke out and asked,

"Sir, what would you have us do?" afraid of further angering his boss, but knowing full well that if he didn't ask he would be punished.

"What do you think I want you to do?" the man snapped as he banged his fist on the side arm of his chair, glaring at his worthless advisor with such intensity that everyone in the room stopped breathing from fear of the tattooed man. "I want you to destroy Kurama's safe haven and make it so he knows that he can never be rid of my fury."

"Burn that damn church to the ground."

Hey all! I know that I've been really sparse in releasing this and I cannot apologize enough… Thank you as always for following my story and supporting me, it truly means so much and it does encourage me to continue writing. Also, thank you Pigeon for your comment :) And a special thank you to the people who just started following and signed up for updates. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little chapter, it's a really big cliffhanger I know, but I hope you'll agree with me that it's worth it. I always truly love any and all feedback! See Ya Later!


	37. The Trouble With Being Helpful Chapter37

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, nor Disney.

**Thirty-Seven: The Trouble With Being Helpful**

'_Seriously, one of these days I'm gonna tell Tamaki that if he wants me to do something with them, it better not require me getting up in the single digits'_

the female host wearily thought as she threw her swimsuit and beach towel into a brightly colored, vinyl, tropical Stitch bag. It was 6:30 in the morning and the day of the hosts' excursion to the Ootori water park. The non-morning person, Michelle, was hurriedly grabbing everything she needed so as not to be late when the boys arrived to pick her up.

'_I know if I'm not outside when they get here, they'll barge in and bother Fr. for a while and while he might not mind it, I don't want Kyouya to be prodding into my life further. That bastard's becoming a real annoyance, I mean why can't he leave me alone?_' she thought as she recalled how Kaoru recently divulged to her that it was Kyouya who told the host club that she wasn't living with her aunt and uncle.

"How'd he know that anyway?"

she muttered to herself as she ran down the stairs to the humble kitchen in the rectory. Seeing that Fr. Kichi wasn't awake yet since the downstairs lights were still shut off, Michelle quietly grabbed a muffin and gingerly opened the front door. Being in stealth mode getting out of the house, the female host didn't see the frightened, battered, raven haired boy down the street that was running full speed towards her. As she turned to walk down the stairs, proud that she made it out of the house without waking her guardian, Michelle immediately spotted Kurama rushing to her, crying his eyes out. Upon seeing him, her heart melted and she dropped her bag without a thought, opening her arms for him to rush into. As soon as the young boy collided into her, the two of them sat on the bottom step of the rectory and neither of them spoke for several minutes. Cradling the boy and trying to comfort him as much as she could while stroking his hair, the blue eyed girl's maternal instincts were truly kicking in and she started to think,

'_this has been going on long enough, I need to get him to tell me what is going on so I can help him get out of this horrible situation'_.

After five or so minutes, Michelle spoke up as she lovingly lifted the boy's face so she could look at him, eye-to-eye.

"Kurama, you know that you're safe here. What happened?" she asked while praying that he would finally give her an answer that she could take with him to the police.

"No'fing"

the little boy sniffled as he meekly wiped the bottom of his nose with the back of his right hand. Without saying anything, the strawberry blonde reached into the Disney bag that she dropped off to her side, grabbed her beach towel, and used it to carefully wipe the crying child's eyes.

"Kurama, this doesn't look like nothing"

she said, oozing with concern, as she noticed that his lip was cut open, his right eye had a shiner, and a small portion of the hair on his left temple was pulled out. Before she could say anything else, a large white limo screeched to a halt next to the two.

"MICHELLE-SAN!"

Tamaki exclaimed as he leapt out of the vehicle, "Are you ready for a day of—"

he excitedly started to say, but stopped as soon as he noticed the small boy who dived even further into the girl's arms due to fear at the sight of the limo.

"Who's the little kid?" the two doppelgangers asked as they leaned out of the open door. Now literally trembling in fear at all of the commotion around them, Kurama started to cry into Michelle's shoulder again.

"Guys, cool it" the strawberry blonde quietly barked at the hosts, while gentling whispering to the little boy that they were her friends and that they were also safe and nice people.

Instantly realizing that the little boy was petrified of them, Tamaki gently knelt down next to the two sitting on the last stair and sweetly said, "Hey there, my name's Tamaki, what's yours?"

Since Michelle said that the other people were nice, Kurama cautiously looked up from the girl's shoulder, still clutching onto her for dear life, to see who was talking to him. Softly answering for the boy, Michelle said, "his name's Kurama and he's a good friend of mine Tamaki".

"Well it's always a pleasure to meet any friend of the fair Michelle's. Hey, do you like magic?" the tall blonde said with such ease that the female host wondered if he had some sort of younger sibling or something that made him so good at talking with children_._

'_I mean, I always thought he did an amazing job with the kids during the toy drive, but he actually has a real talent for working with children'_ she thought as she felt the chocolate eyed boy's grip on her loosen as he nodded his head yes.

Out of nowhere, Tamaki magically produced an origami frog while thousands of bubbles floated around them. Both Michelle and Kurama looked at the host king in childlike awe at the feat he had just performed. The little boy, with Michelle and Tamaki's encouragement, slowly reached out for the paper amphibian and quickly pulled it close to himself so he could examine the 'magical' object closer.

"We're going to a water park today my little friend, would you like to come with us?" Tamaki gallantly asked with a truly sincere smile upon his face, a smile so sincere that one would wonder if he saw the obvious signs of abuse on the boy's face or not.

"I don't know…"

the little boy meekly said in reply, afraid of what his dad might do if he found out.

"We can have so much fun!" the twins joyfully said as they approached the trio, "there are water slides, wave pools, and we can even have a water gun fight!"

Upon seeing the injuries on little brunette's face and his wince at the last word, Kaoru instantly regretted saying the words gun and fight and quickly added, "and they'll be a water roller coaster and all the snacks you can eat!" hoping that that would not scare the child and encourage him to actually join them.

Looking up at Michelle inwardly questioning whether he should go or not, the blue eyed host saw the slight hesitation in his brown eyes and sweetly said, "c'mon, it'll be fun Kurama". Seeing the happiness in her eyes at the hope that he'd join them and feeling safe at the thought of spending more time with her, Kurama hesitantly nodded his head yes as he looked at the three boys who had gathered around them.

"Great!" Tamaki exclaimed as he reached out his hand for the little black haired boy's, "Let's get going then". Still holding onto Michelle with his right hand, Kurama slowly reached out his left hand for the tall blonde's and the three of them walked over to the hosts' limo. Hikaru followed immediately behind the trio, but first Kaoru grabbed the Stitch bag and towel that Michelle had left behind before he scurried after them.

**~**9:00 AM—At the Water Park**~**

'_I'm really glad that the boys got Kurama to come here_', Michelle thought with a smile as she watched the little brunette play with Tamaki, the twins, and Hunny. '_He needs to know that he is loved and worthy of love'_ she thought as she lounged on a nearby beach chair. '_Also, I don't think he's been exposed to fun that much, and if there are any experts on that topic, it's the Host Club,_' the strawberry blonde thought as she brushed a strand of hair from her eyes before she quickly added, '_minus Kyouya that is_.'

When they arrived at the park and much to the twins' dismay, the female host turned down their offer to dress her up in one of their mother's ultra girly swimsuits because of her ever present tomboyish attitude. Instead of being clad in some sort of stylish two-piece suit that the twins wished her to wear, she was comfortably wearing her modest one piece suit, complete with a pair of bright, baggy, men's swim trunks. At first, Tamaki was opposed to her wearing any sort bathing suit in front of them, muttering something about how young women should not show so much skin before she is married, but as Michelle quickly pointed out, she was more clothed in the purple one piece and swim trunks then she was when she wore the diamond covered, flapper style, strapless leotard that she wore when she performed 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' at the Valentines performance. That seemed to shut him up, to her delight.

'_What is up with this place though,_ 'the blue eyed host thought as she looked around at her current tropical surroundings. _'I mean I've been to many water parks in my time, but this place is massive! It's like three times the size of Typhoon Lagoon and it's entirely enclosed in glass. I was not expecting a structure like this to be in the middle of a city and I definitely wasn't expecting Kyouya's family to be the owners of a water park'_, she thought as she puzzled at the idea of the Ootori medical group being able to write the park off as a medical expense as the shadow king made his way over to the area she was sitting in and proceeded to sit down under an umbrella covered table next to her.

"The glass panels that surround us are not only one sided, meaning that no one on the outside can see the inside, but they are also infused with solar panel capacities and are part of the newest scientific study of green electricity" he said in his normal silky smooth voice as Michelle gazed at the mentioned objects.

"Wow, I wasn't thinking about them, but that's really actually… cool" the female host said as she put on a precious pair of sunglasses, ones that she received as a birthday gift from a cast member when she was staying at a Walt Disney World resort. The sound of giggling caught her attention and she turned to face the laughing group of boys who were currently making a large sand castle by the edge of the wave pool.

Seeing the smile creeping onto his annoyance's face as she watched his friends flinging sand at each other, for some reason only the Buddha would know, made Kyouya feel a strange sort of happiness stir inside of him. To brush off that obnoxious feeling, the bespeckled Ootori spoke up again to defer his attention from Michelle, "It seems as if the others are enjoying themselves".

"Yeah, it does doesn't it? It's been a while since I've seen him smile with such ease", Michelle replied as her heart ached at the thought of the little raven haired boy's abuse.

Knowing who she was talking about without even needing to ask, Kyouya instead asked, "Do you know who's harming him?" as he casually reached for the laptop that was next to him on the umbrella covered table.

"No and I wish I did. I mean he's been visiting me for a while, but he won't tell me what's going on". Sighing with frustration she continued, "Uggh, it's killing me seeing him like this and I need to put an end to this. He deserves so much more out of life," was the response she gave Kyouya as she worriedly gazed at the small boy.

"I'll take care of it", the grey eyed boy bluntly said as he turned on his computer, "don't worry about it anymore".

Michelle quickly whisked around to face Kyouya, an obvious look of disbelief and questioning on her face. "Why would you do that? I mean how could helping a little kid like Kurama be beneficial to you?" the female host asked.

Not looking up to answer her questions, Kyouya coolly and indifferently said, "Well it isn't beneficial to me at all, but knowing my softhearted best friend, he won't let me rest until I take care of a situation like this so I might as well get a head start before he turns to me with his pathetic puppy dog eyes".

Since the raven haired boy's eyes were not hidden by a sunlight glare from the direction Michelle was in, she could tell that there was more to his reasoning than he was letting on. '_He responded way too quickly for that to be the real reason. I know 'cause I've done that to when I've tried to lie my way out of something. That means… he might actually care about seeing someone abused'_ the girl calculated as a wave or admiration, a strange feeling when it comes to the Ootori boy, started to come over her.

'_Nah,_' she thought as she immediately dismissed such a thought, but wanting to annoy Kyouya anyway, she coyly said, "Uh, huh. Sure. That's why", as she turned around to face the wave pool in front of her. Before Kyouya could retort her smug comment, the twins descended upon Michelle from out of nowhere and whisked her off in the direction that the others were heading in, saying something about not wanting to try the water roller coaster without her. With the strawberry blonde gone, Kyouya reached for his cell phone from the shirt pocket in his cool blue, Hawaiian style shirt and speed dialed Asunna. Within three seconds, the guard answered his phone and asked how he could be of service to the young Ootori heir since the person he was assigned to watch was currently with Kyouya.

"I need you to make a visit to Fr. Kichi and find out as much as you can about the young street urchin who has been visiting Michelle. Call me as soon as you find out anything."

"Yes sir," the guard answered, not even pausing to second guess the somewhat odd assignment before be hung up the phone and sprinted to his car to carry out his orders.

Within five minutes, and much to Kyouya's surprise, his phone rang again and Asunna's name flashed across his cell phone's screen. Answering immediately, quite impressed that his guard found out something so quickly, Kyouya said,

"Hmm, you already found out something? What did you…"

Almost as soon as the black haired employee began to speak, Kyouya's face grew pale. The more Asunna said, the paler Kyouya's face grew and the wider his grey eyes became. Shaking his head after a minute or so, the be-speckled boy's face returned to normal and he responded simply with,

"we're on our way"

before he hung up on his guard.

Standing up so quickly, his computer almost fell to the ground before he managed to snatch it in mid-air, Kyouya rushed over to the edge of the pool which his fellow hosts were about to emerge from the slide's tube. As soon as the raft filled with the laughing hosts and Kurama popped out of the roller coaster's track and plopped into the water, the raven haired Ootori barked to the female host and his best friend,

"Michelle, we are leaving now, grab your things. Tamaki, you guys keep an eye on Kurama".

Everyone looked at him, quizzical at what happened to make Kyouya act like that, but Michelle just shook off the happiness that she got from the recent ride and glared at him as she said, brimming with annoyance at the tone of voice he just used on her,

"Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about and who the hell do you think you are to order me around like that you…"

she started to say, but caught herself as she remembered that they were in the midst of little and impressionable ears. Wanting to get away from Kurama before she started to chew out her protagonist, Michelle politely excused herself from the others as she hopped out of the raft and stomped over to catch the rich jackass who was gliding away to the front door. Grabbing her stuff for her in the process, knowing that she was going to argue with him some more once she actually caught up with him, Kyouya only paused for a second after he lifted the Disney bag, to make sure that the female was following him. Sprinting after him, Michelle roughly grabbed the handles of her Stitch bag and opened her mouth as if to yell at Kyouya when he cut her off just in time. The next few words out of his mouth had the same effect on the girl as they had on Kyouya moments ago.

"The rectory of Heavenly Savior is on fire".

Hey everyone! Summer's finally here! :D I feel slightly bad that I'm ending with another cliffhanger about the church, but trust me, it will all make sense when I'm finished with the next chapter. Just be ready for some fireworks is all I'm saying.

Btw, thank you so much Cream-Pie13 and the Guest that left a comment in April. You, and all those you follow/read/comment really mean the world. As always, I want to thank all those who have signed up for story alerts and so on :) See Ya Again Soon!


	38. Hospital Visits & DisplacementsChapter38

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club

**Chapter Thirty-Eight: Hospital Visits and Displacements**

Moments after the two teenagers left the Ootori water park, the limo they were in pulled up in front of the Ootori owned hospital across town. Not even waiting for the limo to fully stop, the strawberry blonde girl opened her door and jumped out of it, heading full speed to the information desk inside. Without saying a word, Kyouya grabbed the Disney bag that his companion left behind in her rush, and headed out behind her.

"Excuseme,"

the girl said too quickly and rushed together, showing her urgency and worry, "but where is Fr. Kichi, I need to see him and I was told that he was admitted here?"

Barely acknowledging the girl whose hair was still dripping from the water park she was just at, the blonde nurse coldly asked, "are you a relative?"

"No, I'm not", Michelle replied, "but he's my legal guardian and I need to see him now! He was just admitted from the fire at Heavenly Savior, so where is he?"

"I'm sorry ma'am," the nurse snidely said as she finally looked up at the girl who was standing in front of her with a large, robe-like dress on over her still soaked body, "but unless you are a family member, I cannot divulge his location to you."

At that moment, Kyouya finally caught up with Michelle and he stood right behind her.

"Now you listen to me. I'm the closest thing that he has to family in the area and being my legal guardian that makes him a family member to me," the strawberry blonde said, now bordering on yelling at the stubborn blonde behind the desk.

"I'm sorry, but as I told you, I can't just give his information to anyone who asks for it, so if you would please—" the nurse said as she started to turn around in order to completely ignore Michelle, but was cut off as she jolted at the sound of a young man clearing his voice.

"If you won't give my friend the information she's asking for, perhaps you'd like to give it to me instead," the business like voice of Kyouya cut in, annoyed that one of his family's employees was being so uncooperative.

"Listen young man, as I've been trying to tell your little friend here, I can't—" the nurse icily grumbled, but stopped as soon as she looked at the teenage boy in front of her. Recognizing the fear in the woman's eyes as she realized that she faced the son of her employer, Kyouya spoke up once again with the firm confidence that intimidation could bring him,

"Where is Fr. Kichi located at this moment?"

Beginning to protest again, but stopping as she realized that the boy in front of her could cost her her job if she didn't do as he asked and realizing that it wasn't worth it, the nurse hurriedly pulled up the requested information and scribbled it onto a piece of paper. Snatching the sheet from the nurse, Kyouya curtly thanked her as he put his arm around Michelle's shoulders in order to escort her in the direction of the section of the hospital that was written onto the piece of paper. Being in too much of a rush to get to her guardian, the female host didn't even notice all of the irregularities that Kyouya had just exhibited. Among the many odd traits, that was the first time he'd ever used the word 'friend' when describing her…

"Your guardian was in the building when the fire started and he has inhaled a lot of smoke and has received a few minor burns on his body", a tall, elderly doctor by the name of Hausu told the duo once they reached the area that Fr. Kichi was admitted to. "He's currently receiving enhanced oxygen in a special recovery room, but once his breathing has returned to normal, he will be placed in a hospital room right over there and you can visit him then. Until then however, I'm going to have to ask you to wait here," Dr. Hausu said as he motioned to a nearby, uninhabited section of seats.

The empty waiting area was painted a pale tan color with sea-foam green plush, individual seats. Scattered on the wall were calming scenes of the ocean; a peaceful sunset upon rippling waves, seagulls dancing over a rocky shore, and a lighthouse with a large sailing boat next to it were among the many framed paintings in the area. The two thanked the doctor and Kyouya proceeded to sit down as he placed the Stitch bag that he was still holding, next to him on another seat. Instead of sitting down next to her classmate, Michelle just started worriedly pacing the waiting room floor. A million thoughts were racing her mind at once, creating a cluster of ideas that seemed to babble on endlessly.

'_Oh God, please let him be alright. It's all my fault... I mean, it's all because I'm in the witness protection program, those people must have caught up with me and harmed him. Oh God, why did it have to be him? Oh, it's all my fault! How'd they find me? Who's next? What now? What about my friends at home? Oh God, let him be alright... Fr. Kichi is one of the kindest people I've ever known and now this happens… Oh, why was I born? I'm nothing but trouble to all those who know me. It's all my fault!'_

the blue eyed girl thought in a circular manner of self-hatred and deprecation as she walked back and forth over and over. In all honesty she had no clue who burned the church or why, and a small, currently ignored, part of her knew that, but she still couldn't shake the strong and overwhelming feeling that it was somehow all her fault anyway. Truthfully that wasn't an odd feeling for the perfectionist to have since she always believed that everything that went wrong around her was her fault, whether it was or not. So why should today be different?

Kyouya watched as Michelle paced the floor, not knowing the downward spiral of self-loathing that was going on inside her mind. Not being one who normally had to talk with a person who was as clearly anxious and concerned as the girl was, he had no clue what to say to her, so he just sat in silence, waiting for the doctor to tell them that they could visit the priest. However, something odd happened to him during those tense moments of silence, where the only noise was the occasional crackling of the overhead PA system calling for medical assistance and the never ending patter of Michelle's pacing feet. Seeing how much the strawberry blonde was worried, the same girl who he normally only viewed as a frustrating thorn in his side, caused something to twitch inside of him. Without any real reasoning behind it, a plan began to form in his mind as they waited for what seemed like forever.

At around 3:00 P.M., five hours after Kyouya received the phone call from Asunna, the doctor came back and told the duo that Fr. Kichi could now receive visitors. "But don't let him talk too much. His lungs still need all the air they can get and it wouldn't be wise to either fluster him or let him talk too long, understood?"

The two agreed to the doctor's instructions and he turned around to lead them to the elderly priest. Since she was already standing, Michelle immediately followed the doctor's footsteps without giving another thought to her companion or her bag, which she hadn't really held onto for herself since she walked into the water park that morning. Kyouya also gave no thought to his immediate reaction, which included him unhesitatingly grabbing Michelle's bag as he got up to follow her and the doctor.

"Fr. Kichi you have two visitors who want to see you," Dr. Hausu said as he took a half step into the recovering priest's room, "Are you up for visitors?"

Seeing the priest nod his head 'yes', the doctor stepped aside so the anxious strawberry blonde could enter the room, followed closely by her silent be-speckled friend, a person who looked astonishingly like the third Ootori son.

'_It couldn't be him'_, the doctor thought to himself as he turned out of the room after briefly glancing at the teenage boy again, '_an Ootori would never be here with someone his age, nor would he carry another person's bag.'_

"Fr. Kichi!"

the girl said as she flung her arms as gently as possible around her guardian who was currently hooked up to a multitude of machines. The sight of the priest connected to the machines, with wires and tubes hanging all around and connected to him didn't faze her at all. When Michelle's mother was alive, there were a couple times that her mom was admitted to the hospital because of serious asthma attacks. Whenever her mother was admitted, the blue eyed girl stayed by her mother's side, whether she was there overnight or for a week. All of this time in the hospitals helped in making the teenage girl comfortable with the procedures concerning breathing problems and the way that it looked when someone was hooked up to the machines. Kyouya however was a different story; he was slightly taken aback by the sight in the hospital room. Being an Ootori, he had read a plethora of medical books and already knew quite a lot about the human body and medical actions, but there was a big difference between reading about the technicality of a procedure, and actually seeing someone you've met receiving the treatment.

Upon seeing the girl in his care and seeing the amount of worry and even a curious and unneeded sense of guilt that was oozing from her eyes, Fr. Kichi could only gently smile as he slowly moved his arms up in order to touch Michelle's. In his current state, he didn't have enough strength to hold onto her, but he did manage to place his arms on top of hers for a moment in order to comfort her. Pulling away from her guardian a moment later, Michelle looked him in the eyes and asked,

"Father, are you ok? I mean, were you really in the building when it caught on fire?"

The elderly man lifted his hand to the breathing mask that he had on his mouth and nose as if to remove it in order to answer her questions, but the female host immediately placed her hand on top of his and said with true concern,

"Father, they are yes or no questions, you don't need to remove your breathing mask".

"It's ok my dear," the priest mumbled under the mask, gesturing for her to remove her hand, "I can take this off for short periods of time to talk" he said as he fully removed the mask to answer her questions.

At this point, Kyouya slowly started to approach the girl and her guardian, making sure not to impede on their dialogue.

"Yes my dear, I was in the living room when I heard something crash and explode in the kitchen. I went to go check and see what had happened, but the next thing I knew I woke up on a hospital cot in an ambulance. I'm feeling better now. The doctors told me that I was lucky that the fire was reported as quickly as it was, since I didn't inhale too much smoke before some Good Samaritan rescued me from the flames and left me with the EMTs," the priest said as he slowly put the mask back onto his face and took a few deep breaths of air in order to regain what he had lost in his somewhat lengthy answer.

The Good Samaritan he was speaking about was none other than Asunna, but only Kyouya and his guard knew that and they planned on keeping it that way.

"I can't tell you how relieved I am that you are ok,"

Michelle said with a small smile, sensing that the priest was telling the truth that he was going to be ok. She could see the same fighting spirit in his eyes that she used to see in her own mother's eyes when she was getting better. Before the two could talk about much more, a knock came at the door frame and a police officer stood in the doorway. Michelle held her breath for a moment, afraid that he was sent by the witness protection program to retrieve her.

"Excuse me, uh… Fr. Kichi," the short, pudgy officer disinterestedly asked as he looked down at his clipboard, "I'm from the police department and I'll need a detailed statement of what happened and what was lost as soon as possible."

Breathing a sigh of relief that the cop was only there for a statement, Michelle spoke up before the priest could take his mask off again,

"He's slowly beginning to regain functioning use of his lungs, so can you and I start with the damage report and end with the eyewitness portion, so he can get a little more oxygen and medication in his lungs?"

Looking to the priest first before responding to the girl, the police officer said, "that's fine," as he realized that the elderly man could use a little more time on the oxygen machine.

"Stay with him Kyouya,"

Michelle said as she turned to the boy who had remained silent the entire time, before she followed the police officer to the nearby seaside styled waiting room. Kyouya nodded in agreement as he finally put down her beach bag onto a chair in the corner and approached the bedside of the priest. Once the strawberry blonde and the cop disappeared from view, Kyouya turned to the priest and said in a very serious tone,

"Father, I need to talk with you for a moment; it's in regard to Michelle."

**~**Thirty Minutes Later**~**

"Thank you for all of your cooperation ma'am," the cop said as he escorted Michelle back to the priest's hospital room. "After we finish the report, we'll let the insurance company know. Hopefully they'll contact you in the next few days with more information,"

he mentioned to the girl as she walked back over to where the hospital bed and an oddly smirking Kyouya was. Before she had a chance to truly question the Cheshire Cat like smile on the raven haired boy's face, the two of them were shooed out of the room by the police officer,

"Now I need to get that eyewitness statement from Fr. Kichi since he's had a little more time to rest."

Wandering back over to the still vacant waiting room, Kyouya was the first to break the silence between the two.

"Don't worry about scheduling an insurance meeting with the proper officials; I will take care of all of that for you,"

he said as he pulled his notebook out of nowhere and started to write a list of all the measures that needed to be taken in the next few days. Since she was no longer worrying about her guardian's health, the past few hours rushed through her mind and she recalled how politely her normally jerk-like classmate was acting towards her. '_Why would a pompous person like him be so…kind?_' Still curious as to why Kyouya had such an odd smirk on his face earlier, Michelle spoke up as she sat down for the first time in hours,

"Thank you Kyouya, but there's no need to do that. I'm a big girl and can handle this myself. I mean, I'm going to have to take care of myself and Fr. now since our residence was burnt to the ground... I wonder where we'll be able to stay until the house is rebuilt… Well, since he'll still be in the hospital for a couple more days for observation, I can just stay here and keep an eye on him. But when he's discharged we'll need someplace else… I guess that's something I'll talk to the insurance agent about" the girl stated, muttering the last part to herself more than to her companion.

"First of all," Kyouya said without looking up from his notebook, "This has nothing to do with how capable or incapable you are at taking care of yourself. Second of all, you don't need to worry about where your guardian will be staying after he is discharged from here; we will make sure he is well taken care of and is comfortable. Lastly…"

he said as he looked up at the truly confused female host,

"Since you will be staying with my family until the rectory is fully rebuilt, all things like insurance claims and the like will be taken care of by the Ootori Corporation, so stop worrying about it." and with that, he quickly turned back to his growing list of tasks on his notebook.

Michelle was truly focusing on the words that Kyouya was saying to her, until the words 'you will be staying with my family' left his lips. Once those words hit her ears, the strawberry blonde looked down at the floor and could have sworn that the world stopped turning, but somehow everything around her was spiraling out of control.

"What did you just say?"

the girl softly asked, with a clear tone of confusion, with an undertone of disgust, seeping through those five small words, refusing to look up at Kyouya when he answered her.

"I said," the be-speckled boy stated, "that you don't need to worry about anything because…"

"No, no, no, I meant that part about my accommodations"

the blue eyed girl interjected as she raised her hand as if to stop him, shuddering unconsciously at the thought of her being forced to take residence with the most annoying boy that she had ever met. True, he had been nice the past few hours and she did enjoy their banter from time to time, but she couldn't forget that this was the same Kyouya that had forced her into servitude for the host club, the same Kyouya that she argued with basically every time they spoke, the same Kyouya who tried to assert dominance over her at every waking moment, the same Kyouya who tried to manipulate her every chance he got. There was no way that she was going to agree to this arrangement.

"Oh,"

Kyouya said as he smugly fixed his glasses, obviously amused that he was disgusting her as much as he was, "I discussed that with Fr. Kichi while you were with the police officer. Since it is the hospital's policy to not allow visitors in this section to stay overnight with the patient and since it is unbefitting for a young lady, such as yourself, to live in a hotel room, which the insurance company will undoubtedly provide as a housing accommodation in the meantime, with an elderly gentleman, guardian or not, he rather quickly agreed with me that it would be more appropriate for you to stay in the home of a fellow classmate until the rectory is fully rebuilt. As I informed him, you will receive your own suite, your own maid, and your personal space will be fully respected. You will have a lock to your suite that only your maid and yourself will have a key for and a strict 'in suite' curfew will be placed upon both you and I, just to maintain the proper amount of decorum" the boy said silkily, not missing any opportunity to embellish his offer, as if he was selling a vacation home to a buyer.

"WHAT?!"

Michelle exclaimed in disbelief, "You mean to tell me that Fr. actually agreed to that crap? I mean, I admit I really appreciate that you are offering to help us out and all, but let me tell you that there is no way that I'm going to move in with you, so you can forget that you, arrogant…"

she started to raise her voice to the calm boy in front of her, but stopped when he looked up to meet her eyes.

"Well then, if you don't believe me, why don't you ask him yourself when he's done with the officer?" Kyouya said as he bore into her eyes with a look of 'you'd be wise to not argue this point' in his charcoal eyes.

"Oh you can bet your spoiled ass that I will," was the answer he received as she stormed over to wait outside the priest's door for the police officer to leave.

'_This is most certainly going to be interesting_,' Kyouya thought to himself as he pulled out his cell phone in order to start preparing everything that he and Michelle's guardian discussed about concerning her lodging.

'_I still don't understand why I came up with this idea,'_ he thought as he waited for the chief of staff at the Ootori's mansion to answer the phone, '_But I will make it work to my advantage. Those walls of secrecy of hers will soon be broken through._

'_Very soon'_.

_

_Hi everyone! I'm back again thanks to the amazing amount of support you guys have shown from my last update! I mean it, to log onto the site and see that in a 24 hour period you received 5 amazing reviews and another one before the week was over…_

_It's truly amazing and inspiring, so honestly a massive thank you to PepperCornPie (good catch on the cause of the fire btw), You Can't Handle This Username, VampireSiren (Thank you so much! I'm always so afraid that I'll mess up comedy bits since I'm not too used to writing them, but I'm so happy to know that I can be capable of them), .3 (Wow, that's a humbling comment if I've ever read one, thank you! And don't worry, your two fav boys will definitely be stepping up soon, as you can see Kyouya beginning to here), and the mysterious and anxious guest!_

_Whew, now this chapter introduced a serious story change here! Toldja that something big was on the way, lol. I hope that this chapter is continuing on the quality that I hope I've maintained and you've come to appreciate by now, but if it isn't, I encourage people keeping me in check ;)_

_As always, thank you for all of the story alerts and fav author/story selections and your continued interest in this story! See ya all soon!_


	39. Entrapment Chapter 39

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, Microsoft, or any Disney characters

**Chapter Thirty-Nine: Entrapment**

'_Lord, what did I do wrong to have all this happen to me?_'

Michelle pleaded to God as she sat on the bay window seat and stared out at the stars that shone above the rest of the mansion outside of the window. Most normal people would have thought that a multi-billionaire who has not only offered to give you your own private suite within his mansion and a maid at your beck and call, but also told you that he would be providing you with a fully stocked walk-in closet and anything else that you asked for, well, they would have considered that man to be their own personal prince charming and feel as if they had entered the fantasy life that one reads about in fairy tales.

Michelle was not one of those people.

'_A fairy tale life here? Yeah, sure. I feel exactly like Belle did when the Beast imprisoned her in his castle,'_ she thought with a scoff.

At the current moment it was 8:00 at night and the female host was already situated in her private suite at the Ootori's mansion because to her great dismay, her guardian really did agree to let her stay at Kyouya's house until everything returned to normal at the church. The reasoning behind her protagonist's decision, or at least the one that he was sticking with for the moment, was—

Tamaki doesn't live in the main mansion, meaning that he hasn't gained the full trust of his own family and taking her under his roof would further add to his family difficulties. Mori and Hunny have younger siblings (that she didn't know about before today) that still live at the house and therefore they do not have enough spare room for her to live in the same level of privacy that Kyouya can offer. And finally the twins were younger than her, making them too immature to handle sheltering a fellow classmate for several months, if not a year (an argument that she thought was the weakest, but Fr. Kichi thought it was strong enough to let it affect his decision).

'_Still, why did it have to be _him_ God?_'

she pleadingly looked to the skies again as if she expected an answer to materialize from the heavens. Before she could further lament her current conditions anymore, a soft knock came at her suite's door. Grumbling as she moved from her seat to the answer the large double black doors of her suite, Michelle looked through the small peep hole that was situated in the right door, so she could decide if she wanted to open it. Seeing that it wasn't the person that she really didn't want to deal with at the moment, Kyouya, but that it was her personal maid, Rutsubo, instead, she begrudgedly opened the door in order to let the chipper woman in.

Her maid was approximately forty years older than Michelle and had long, salt and pepper hair that was always tucked neatly in a bun that sat on the top of her head. Rutsubo was Michelle's height, but not the same build as her new charge. Rutsubo wasn't fat, but she was plump, just like Mrs. Potts' was, continuing Michelle's current 'fairy tale' analogy of her life. Just like Mrs. Potts, the maid had a cheerful and almost maternal quality to her, but at the current moment her personality just pissed Michelle off more than providing comfort to her.

"Hello Michelle-sama," the sweet voice of Rutsubo chirped, "I've just spoken with Kyouya-sama and he has told me to apologize on his behalf that the clothes and other necessities that he has taken the liberty to order for you have not arrived yet. The items should arrive early in the morning and with your permission, I will help them place everything in your room before you wake up."

"Sure," Michelle lethargically said, "Whatever."

She was curt in her answers at the moment because in all honesty, all of the female host's politeness had faded away due to her long day. Dealing with a condescending jerk like Kyouya for a long period of time could drain every last ounce of kindness even from a person like Mother Theresa, not that Michelle was anywhere near the saint, but the blue eyed girl bet that even Mother Theresa would sock the be-speckled boy if she had to deal with him for an extended time.

"Also, I've brought you the grey messenger bag from your locker at school that you requested and I've already taken the liberty to set up the toiletries that you described in your bathroom so you may get comfortable before you head to sleep," the maid continued to describe as she handed the Disneyland Paris bag to the strawberry blonde.

Upon seeing her beloved bag, Michelle eagerly opened it up as soon as it was handed to her and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw that her laptop was still encased in the soft gray material.

'_Thank you God that I had to bring my laptop to school for a project and forgot to bring it home'_

she prayed in thanksgiving as a huge smile crept on to her lips and she enveloped the item in a huge bear hug. Seeing that her last link to her life in America was still intact, a flood of joy swept over the girl and she started feel better about life for a moment, allowing her polite manners to return to her. After registering that Rutsubo had just told her that she had set up the host's bathroom for her, Michelle looked up at her maid and sincerely thanked her for all that she had done.

"Oh, did you have a chance to ask Kyouya if I can change the way the room looks?" the female host asked as she motioned at her monotone surroundings.

While the colors grey, black, and white might suit the be-speckled boy, it would drive the blue eyed girl insane if she had to remain in such a dull room. She knew that she was just a guest, but Michelle figured that a) she wouldn't change anything to the actual structure of the room, so it wouldn't be that hard to revert the room back to its original state when she left, b) she wasn't planning on really spending a lot of money on touching the place up so she wouldn't feel like she was taking advantage of his family, and c) it would totally annoy Kyouya to see something so drastically contrasting the rest of the houses designs, causing him to avoid her room more, which at the moment was the major seller for her.

"No I haven't yet ma'am, I'll go ask him right away and I'll return with your sleep wear for the evening," the maid said with a small bow as she turned to leave the room.

Being alone in the suite once again, Michelle eagerly opened up her computer and dug around in the bag for the flash drive that she used for school work. She was so anxious to make sure that all the truly important stuff that was irreplaceable, like all of her stories, her photos, the mp3 files of the songs from her church, and all the old e-mails from her American friends that she had saved onto word documents, were safe on another device, she just splayed out her laptop and chords immediately on the small table at the entrance to her suite. In the morning she'd ask Kyouya for a full-fledged external hard drive, but for the moment, since she had lost everything else that she owned earlier that day, the strawberry blonde had to make sure that her memories wouldn't share the same fate as her beloved stuffed Dale. It might be strange that the only item she deeply mourned for was that round stuffed chipmunk, but it was her last physical link to her mother and father. It was the last birthday gift that she received from her now deceased parents and it was killing her knowing that she no longer even had that to connect her to them.

Pulling up all of the data that she had of her old life and beginning to transfer it all to the small flash drive, thanking God that she bought the largest flash drive that the store had the last time she went with Fr. Kichi, Michelle decided to take a shower and get ready for bed. Before she went into her bathroom, the female host walked over to the main door of the suite and opened it a crack for the maid who was returning with her pajamas. When she got to the bathroom, the blue eyed girl looked at the bath products that Rutsubo had left behind for her and her eyes widened,

'_These are the same products that they used at the hair salon I frequented in New York City. I mean, these items are needlessly expensive! Michelle, you moron…_' she thought shaking her head as she reached in to turn on the shower, '_of course the items are expensive, remember the source is Kyouya. It's a damn good thing that he clarified that he would never charge me for anything that I received as a guest in his house 'cause Lord knows I wouldn't ever pay him a cent for the overpriced products that he's shoving on me now_.'

A few minutes later when the water was at the appropriate cool temperature that she preferred, the female host stepped inside to wash all of the stress of the day off of her.

'_I can't believe today started off like a normal Saturday morning with the guys and now I'm trapped in the most inhospitable place that I could have ever imagined. If I ever see Wren again, I'll tell her that Belle's life is not desirable at all, even though she is her favorite princess'._

Effectively switching her thoughts from her current frustrations to a peaceful time back in America, the girl could finally feel the stress just dissolving around her. Michelle was enjoying her relaxing moment so much that she didn't even question the faint knock at her main door. Thinking that it was just Rutsubo dropping off the clothes, the strawberry blonde just yelled from the shower,

"Thanks for bringing my pj's! Can you just leave them on the table out front next to my laptop? Thank you so much and that'll be all for the night," and turned back to washing her long strawberry blonde locks.

However, the person at the door to her suite wasn't the elderly maid; it was Kyouya who had come to deliver her sleep wear instead. He had come to personally talk to his guest about what she was allowed/not allowed to change in her room and he had been mentally preparing himself for another round of arguments since they had been at each others' throats, even more so than usual, ever since he told her that she'd be staying with him at his place. Hearing that his guest was occupied in the shower and seeing the laptop in front of him was literally the most welcomed sight that he could've hoped to find. Overhearing an earlier conversation that Michelle had with Kaoru, the raven haired boy knew that the female host took hour long showers, giving him more than enough time to give in to the temptation of seeing what his annoyance had on her normally extremely well protected laptop. Kyouya gently placed the clothes in his hand next to the electronic device and examined the screen to find to his further delight that not only had something finished downloading onto a portable flash drive, but that the flash drive was the exact same brand that his household used. Not fully reasoning what he was doing, the grey eyed boy dug around in his pocket, hoping that he hadn't removed the brand new empty flash drive that he had acquired a couple moments ago for his science project. Grinning a truly mischievous smirk as he victoriously pulled the device from his pocket, Kyouya took the girl's fully loaded flash drive, replaced it with his, and restarted the downloading process onto his flash drive so Michelle would never know that it wasn't hers. Marveling in his complete and utter luck, the boy quietly exited his guest's suite, closing the automatically locking door behind him.

'_Since she's staying at my house, I have the responsibility to make sure that I'm not harboring a criminal or a fugitive, right?'_

the boy weakly reasoned as he rushed straight back to his room with his newfound treasure, truly anxious to open and explore the files of his nuisance's computer.

'_It's about time to find out who this girl really is'._

Uh Oh Kyouya, are you ready to deal with the information on there as well as the wrath of the owner of the information? We'll find out soon. And seriously, I can't apologize enough for the lack of consistency in posting chaps… But as always, a true and heartfelt thank you to all those who added this story to their update alert list, fav author, fav story, and so on, your actions really mean a lot to me.

TTFN!


	40. Breakdown! Chapter 40

Typical Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club or any Disney characters

**Chapter Forty: Breakdown!**

**~**7:30 AM on Sunday morning**~**

"Send in Kyouya right away,"

a voice barked from his plush leather seat that was well situated within the dark study. It was the second day of the four day Ouran academic holiday and while it was a beautiful day outside with the sun fully shinning, one would never have known by the lack of light inside the Ootori patriarch's dim study. A minute or so later, a confident sounding knock at the door came from an apprehensive hand.

"Get in here now,"

was the response that the be-speckled boy heard, causing Kyouya to slowly and softly open the large mahogany door that separated him from his father.

"Good morning oto-sama, I trust that you had a pleasant sleep last night" the grey eyed boy said from his deep bow of respect.

Normally, Kyouya would be worried and even a little scared about being so rapidly sent for by his father, but he had been preparing to explain himself since he first came up with the plan yesterday. Also, since he had finally basically cracked the impossible case of Michelle, '_or should I even call her that…,_' he thought with an inward smirk, he was in an extremely good mood that morning.

"Don't patronize me! Is what the chief of staff at the manor told me about you opening our home to a stray girl correct? Because let me tell you that that is not the news that I wanted to wake up to this morning when going over the daily report with him," the man barked in his deep voice as he scowled at his youngest son.

"Oto-sama, you have heard correctly, I prepared the vacant suite in the east wing for my classmate, Warner, Michelle. And I did not mean to patronize you, I do hope that you slept well last night," the boy said as he nodded his head in respect to his father.

"DO YOU THINK THIS IS A JOKING MATTER?"

Yoshiro barked as he rapidly stood up from behind his desk, obviously filled with rage. "I told you to get close to that girl, not to adopt her like some lost puppy! Why the hell is she under my roof?"

"I think that this is a truly serious matter oto-sama. That is why I acted as I did. Her home has been recently demolished due to a fire and since her guardian is unable to provide the proper accommodations for a young lady, I offered the Ootori manor as a short-term solution to a person who might serve as a great asset to our family at a later date," Kyouya said, purposefully dangling a piece of information in front of his father to stir up his curiosity.

Grabbing the bait that his son taunted in front of him, Yoshiro spit out, "How the hell could a girl like that be valuable enough for all of the trouble that her presence will undoubtedly cause?"

Inwardly smirking because he knew that he had his father right where he wanted him, the raven haired boy replied, "You mentioned several weeks ago about how valuable Michelle-san could be in public relations and as you have instructed me, I have grown closer to her. In getting closer to her, I have run an investigation and discovered that she not only is planning on studying law, which may I point out is always beneficial in our business, but she also has extremely strong connections with the American government, a financial market that you have been hoping to extend the Ootori company towards."

Pausing in order to let all that he had said sink in, Kyouya then added as he bowed down once again, "I was merely acting in what I hope to be the most beneficial course of action for our family."

Sitting down at his son's last comment, Yoshiro merely said, "I see. Well, I'll evaluate what you have just described to me and if I do allow her to stay here, I expect weekly reports in order to prove to me that she really is an asset to us and not just here because of a strange whim on your part, agreed?" the patriarch asked as he sat rigidly in his chair to give more of a powerful air to his order.

"Yes sir oto-sama," Kyouya said as he bowed deeply once again.

"That'll be all,"

Yoshiro said as he dismissively waved his son out of his study so he could return to the important financial matters of the day. Once Kyouya had completely exited his father's room, he started to question himself as he walked back to his private suite.

'_Why am I doing this_?' he puzzled, '_Why am I so concerned in that girl still? I mean I "stretched the truth" as the twins would put it, so far that in the end it almost didn't resemble reality at all. I told my father that she was studying law, but instead that girl is actually planning on making a career dead end by becoming some sort of music leader in a church. I was able to say that she was studying law because I remembered that the Catholic Church refers to their rules as Cannon Law or something similarly ridiculous. And that 'fact' about her having close connections in the American government was only because her parents worked as scientists and attended many embassy events. Why am I not only not cutting all ties with that person, but still furthering my involvement? Why does the thought of her having no place to stay if I can't convince my father to let her stay here bother me so much?'_

the be-speckled boy questioned as he turned the corner to head for his suite. However, he was stopped mid-stride by a sound that he hadn't heard since the last time his best friend paid him a private visit;

the sound of the grand piano in the library playing.

**~**7:30 AM on Sunday morning**~**

On the other side of the mansion, at the exact same time that Kyouya was summoned to his father's room, the movers finished placing all of the items that the raven haired boy ordered for his house guest in her walk-in closet. Seeing that everything was in order, Rutsubo decided to wake her new charge up in order to acquaint her with everything that was added. Not knowing that Michelle was rather like Kyouya when it came to being woken early, the elderly maid didn't know that she was about to thoroughly bother her new mistress.

"Good morning Michelle-sama"

the woman happily chirped as she opened the curtains to the strawberry blonde's bedroom window and rushed over to the side of the bed to make sure that the young girl woke up. Grumbling something about getting less sleep on scholastic vacations than she does during regular school days, the girl's sapphire eyes sparkled with annoyance as the morning rays hit them.

"It's a gorgeous morning ma'am and the movers have fully furnished your closet," the maid said as she gestured to the large closet behind her while she sunk into a small bow.

Not knowing whether it was tradition in the house to get up early or if it was just her new maid's eagerness to show off all the work that she accomplished while Michelle slept, the girl flopped out of bed and dragged herself to the closet with a forced smile upon her face. When she opened the doors, her eyes grew wide. The closet was the size of her room in the rectory, but more noticeably, it was the size of her closet back in America. To her right, dresses and skirts were hung neatly, in front of her were dress pants, jeans, Bermuda shorts, and the like, and to her left were dress shirts and t-shirts. Bordering the bottom of the closet were dozens of pairs of shoes from ballet flats and flip-flops to heels and boots. In the two distant corners there were drawers of necklaces, earrings, and rings. But the most surprising thing about all of the contents in the closet was the fact that all of the items were exactly her style. There were a lot of professional items for church events, but there were so many casual items, mostly in men's fit, and more Disney shirts than she had seen in the longest time. Taking a few minutes to absorb everything, Michelle's mind was truly spinning.

'_I had no idea that he actually paid attention to what I wore and knew what to supply my closet with. I mean, this definitely shows a lot of thought_,' the girl thought as she reached out for a long purple robe, her favorite color even, that had a Donald Duck head embroidered on the back.

Putting the plush robe on as she donned a pair of Jasmine style slippers, Michelle left the closet in hopes to find Kyouya. '_I need to thank him for all this. I mean, it's nothing in comparison to all the crap that he has done to me, but I've got to show that I'm a pleasant house guest and not a complete ingrate and— Wait… I really am going about this the wrong way aren't I?' _she paused as she reflected on her down slope back into her bitter thoughts about the shadow king of the host club.

'_Yeah sure, he's a jerk and takes pleasure in using other people to further his own plans, but he really does have a sweet streak somewhere deep down. He really cares for Tamaki, he didn't even wait for me to ask him to help with Kurama, he was really kind to me at the hospital, when we weren't arguing, it looks like he really went out of his way to provide me with clothes I like, and as far as I can tell, he honestly has no purpose for taking me in. True, he'll probably figure out some sort of loop hole through all of this that will make me more indebted to him, but his actions recently mean that I should give him the benefit of the doubt… for now'_

the strawberry blonde thought as she asked her maid to have breakfast prepared for her by the time she came back while she closed the door to her suite behind her. As she turned out of her room, she realized that she had no idea which room was her protagonist's. Michelle didn't want to go back into her room and ask her maid to direct her because Rutsubo might actually insist on accompanying the female host and she didn't want anyone in the Ootori household to see the two of them arguing, at least not so soon after they opened their doors to her. True, she didn't plan on having an argument when she found him, but the blue eyed girl had learnt a long time ago that all of their conversations somehow ended up that way anyway, whether she planned it or not. Hoping that she had turned the right way, the strawberry blonde started peering into all of the open doorways and gently knocking at all of the closed ones. Excusing herself when she ran into members of the Ootori staff by pretending to be looking for the bathroom, Michelle managed to almost finish searching the entire wing in a couple of minutes; just three rooms remained. The first of the final three doors were thankfully open. She was beginning to feel like a real ditz wandering the halls with no real idea where she was going and she unfortunately knew that the only way to avoid attracting any real attention from the wait staff was to look like she was a lost little girl.

Peering carefully into the room, she saw that it was a library. She was about to duck out of the door and continue on her way when her eyes caught a glimpse of a shiny black piano. Quietly gasping with delight, Michelle looked all around her to make sure no one saw her enter the room. Upon seeing that she was alone, she swiftly fully entered the room and closed the door behind her. It's true that seeing a piano wasn't a rare sight since Tamaki's was always at the music room, but she hadn't been alone with a piano since America. Gently she allowed her fingers to glide across the black and white keys, remembering what it felt like to have the items under her hand. The female host took piano lessons as a child, but since she never really cared for any of her multiple tutors' methods, she just continued her musical pursuit on her own. Because she never had formal training for a long period of time, and once again due in part to those damn perfectionist tendencies, she never thought that she was good enough to play in public. Also, since she was always surrounded by people she considered to be the most talented pianists on the planet, such as her old next-door neighbor, her old music minister, and now Tamaki, Michelle was ultra self critical about her own musical talent. But now, now she was alone with a piano and every ounce of her wanted nothing more than to sit down and play the beautiful instrument. Panning the room again to make sure that she really was alone, the strawberry blonde sat down on the bench and began to play. Unconsciously the girl began to play a song that she used to sing all the time at her church back in America. Not only did all of the notes flow from her as if she had never stopped playing, but all of her memories from America came flooding back like a typhoon. All of the barriers that she created to keep herself from getting overly emotional were destroyed and as the music played, she could feel herself drowning in memories.

Carefree memories of her traveling with her parents, lighthearted memories of her having quality time with her best friend, memories of her responsibilities at her old church, memories of her learning valuable lessons from her mentor, memories of her breaking bones and horsing around with the neighborhood guys, all the memories that she had before arriving on Japanese soil.

Not only did the sound and act of playing the music trigger all of her pent up mental images, but for the first time since she held Wren in her arms as she told her best friend that they might never see each other again, tears escaped from the girl's sapphire eyes. Falling slowly at first, but building up so much momentum that it was impossible to even see the piano, the girl collapsed from her sorrow onto the keys and continued to let all of her emotions flow from her, not that she would have be able to control the tears that she held in for so long even if she tried.

Unbeknownst to her, she was no longer alone in the room anymore.

This chapter took me quite a while to write in order to give a realistic sort of explanation for Yoshiro and a solid breakdown of Michelle's pent-up emotions, so sorry for the delay! I cannot say enough about those of you who are still following this story and if you are discovering this story for the first time, WELCOME! Please feel free to leave a comment whenever, regardless of length or content, I would just love to hear from you on how this story is working :)

TTFN!

p.s. next chapter we finally get a real name from Michelle!


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